Hi ya’ll!
Apparently, I’m supposed to introduce myself and I really don’t know what to say, so kindly bear with me. Here goes nothing.
I’m James, from Kenya - East Africa - and I’m in my late 40’s.
The first time forex and I truly crossed paths in an academic setup was when I was studying for a masters degree in applied finance at the University of Newcastle, Australia, about 2 decades ago. Since then, I have always been vaguely aware of what forex is but I’ve never really paid it any particular attention until now. I got a job with the government when i returned home to Kenya, and I have been there for close to 16 years now.
Well, a couple of years back, (2017 to be specific) I ran into some problems at work and in my personal life that proved to be catastrophic to my financial standing and also left me with a lot of free time on my hands. In October of last year (2019), a colleague mentioned that she was engaged in forex trading and went on to demonstrate just how well she was doing financially. Which, of course, piqued my interest but somehow, nothing came of it.
So, about 2 weeks ago, yet another colleague introduced me to a company named tradera that purports to teach forex, while offering the student a chance to earn a “residual income” at the same time through Multi Level Marketing (MLM). I’ve always been leery of MLM companies but I jumped at the chance to learn forex trading and I became a member of Tradera
It turns out that I was right to be suspicious. 
In my experience, the extent of learning offered by the company is how to set a stop loss and take profit, how to execute a buy or sell trade and that’s it. The student is then expected to wait for trading signals from the company which, allegedly, has about a 70% success rate in trades. However, they are very active in pushing students to recruit others and the incentives offered for this are quite simply unbelievable. This is not for me, as my interest lies in learning how to trade; I wish to develop a new skill that should prove to be profitable and I have the time to do so.
And so after about 1 week of this nonsense, I resolved to search for content online with which I would be able to learn on my own. I was very fortunate to get some educational videos from AstroFx, which is based in the UK. I also ran into babypips which has been a tremendous help though i have found some of the explanations offered under the education platform to be rather convoluted.
My ultimate goal - why I’m here - is to learn forex trading as thoroughly as I possibly can. I intend to continue trading into the foreseeable future and, quite possibly, at a professional level. After hours of YouTube videos, I am coming to the realization that, 1) There is a huge psychological component to trading, and, 2) Forex trading is not a means to get rich quickly. In my assessment, I think I have the personality to be a good trader, though time will tell.
My hopes and dreams are kind of intertwined. If I were to assign a monetary value and timeline to my immediate hopes, then I hope to earn 200,000$ in the next 5 years. Which would sort out all of my immediate financial problems, and then some. My dreams? I dream of leaving my beautiful daughters ( aged 11 and 6) a wonderful inheritance by bequeathing them an investment portfolio that includes real estate, shares, bonds and precious metals. Forex trading is one of the means that I intend to pursue to make my dreams come true.
That’s about it. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I am very glad to be here.
