Hi everyone,
Had some significant health issues that has meant I haven’t been able to work for 18+ months. Have a strong coding background.
Interested in learning trading and seeing if it could bring in some income. Grateful for any help, advice and guidance anyone could offer!
Would forex or crypto be a good place to start?
Cheers
David
Hey David.
Your coding background will help you to follow the rules of your trading strategy. Unfortunately it will hinder you as well.Lemme explain:
You have been conditioned to produce excellent results every time. You are driven to produce clean, error-free code everytime, without exception.I would bet you are pretty good at it, too.
Trading is the exact oppoosite. You must now condition yourself to become a great loser. For example, the best of the best scalpers (top 1%) have a consistent win rate of around 87%. That means, even though they are the greatest traders in the world, they still lose around 13 percent of their trades.
It’s even worse if you become a swing trader. Expect to lose 60 percent of your trades to ultimately make a profit. If it sounds counterintuitive, it is. Welcome to trading.
As a beginner, you will focus solely on risk. Try to fight this temptation. Instead focus on probability.
Ditch the fundamental analysis. It’s worthless, especially when trading fiat currencies that have absolutely no intrinsic value. Instead, trade based on what the market is doing now. You can’t affect which direction it goes,so you may as well just go along for the ride.
Last, ditch the indicators. Instead, put all your efforts into learning price action analysis. You’ll be glad you did.
Thanks @steveepperson - very helpful info for a programmer! I’ll certainly bear it in mind.
Would you recommend the price analysis training here? Or could you recommend some other training resources too?
Also, do you have thoughts on pros/cons of Forex vs crypto at this point?
cheers
David
Hello and welcome to the community, David! Sorry to hear about your health struggles.
Both forex and crypto trading have their pros and cons. Forex is more established and has a larger market, while crypto can be more volatile. Babypips has both forex and crypto schools. It might be worth exploring both to determine your preference.
All the best on your trading journey!
Welcoooome redcoat! 
I hope you’re doing a lot better now and that you have fully recovered from your health issues. 
Hmm. 
I think this depends. Hahaha. How much of a risk taker are you? Maybe you can make a more informed choice after reading the schools of pipsology and crypto here. 
Good luuuck!
Welcome David! Maybe start by researching both and see which grabs your interest. Good luck and see you around!
I am a student of Al Brooks, and I would attribute almost all my success to him.
There are two reasons I trade FOREX exclusively:
The charts are mostly fluid and don’t present many gaps in the price. Not so with individual stocks.
FOREX brokers will allow you to trade micro accounts, meaning you can risk as little as a dollar per trade on most accounts. that is truly remarkable and is a great asset while you learn.
I can’t speak to Crypto or other blockchain-driven instruments. Truth is, it doesn’t really matter what you trade. Whether it be individual stocks, micro S&P 500, FOREX, or crude oil futures, price action theory is all the same, so you can apply it to almost anything, including block-chain currencies and dirivatives.
Wow, just discovered Al Brook’s videos - they seem pretty comprehensive. Guessing they are worth $399? Wondering how proficient I would be after watching them all and practicing.
One of my outstanding questions as I’ve started to dig into learning trading, is how long should I expect before I might be profitable? I guess that’s a bit hard to answer given everyone’s different aptitude, but would love your thoughts!
Worth every penny. Don’t bother with the “regular course.” Instead, go with the FOREX course. While all the examples are on the FOREX charts, you will gain enough knowledge to trade almost anything, including crypto. Who knows. He may ofer a discount soon. He does that from time to time.
You can probably learn enough from all the free stuff on his site to at least get you going. Theres more information there than what’s offered by most “paid courses.”
I’m not going to lie, it’s a lot on information, and you will have to go back to the vids many times. Go through them all in order, and then go back again to the areas where you feel the weekest.
If you stick with FOREX, you must learn scalping. Not many people will tell you that, but it’s true. Sure, you may get a swing trade once in a while, but if you are going to be consistently profitable, it will be because you are scalping. Just the way it is in FOREX.