Hello everybody,
I’m Diogo, I’m from Portugal, 28 years old.
I’m a business owner (own 3 local businesses) and I’m looking to maximize my investment opportunities.
My work life is mainly focused on Management and Marketing.
Forex always caught my attention but it wasn’t until late 2020 that I set a promise to learn how to trade, to grow from a beginner to whatever I may grow into.
So, here’s a little roadmap I’ve drawn to help get me started in the FX markets:
Learning phase - Starting 01/01/2021
- Study at least 2 hours per day
- Study method: reading, writing, reviewing and quizzes
- Start with babypips intro course
- Continue with “Lehman Brothers Foreign Exchange Training Manual”
- Aim to read 1 book a month for the whole 2021 year (12 fx related books for 2021)
Demo Phase - Maybe Starting Late March 2021
- Start with a demo account and apply all knowledge gained
- Join communities
- Hopefully find a mentor
1st Investment Phase - TBD
- I’ve set aside a bit of money to start and I’ll be reinforcing that value with around 500$ each month. By the end of the year 2021 I’ll maybe have 6000$ to invest if I don’t start trading first.
- Apply 35% of my budget to start investing while te rest holds on crypto
- Document my mistakes and victories
2nd Investment Phase - TBD
- Get 65% of remainder budget (and profits, if any) and start committing to daily trading and making an habit of trading.
As about investment returns I’m expecting: none, to be honest. I know 99% of traders lose all their money in the short term. If I’m looking to be in the 1%, that means no expectations, just learning and getting confidence on my skill.
Luckily I’ll find a mentor who can get me going as soon as I start my Demo Phase, but, as I said, no expectations. Just learning every day.
Let me know if I should change anything in this roadmap.
Thank you all. I wish you all great profits.
4 Likes
Excellent attitude. I would open a demo account while in the learning phase to experiment. Aim to treat this account AS THOUGH IT WAS LIVE, because you’ll need the right psychological mind set to manage risk and money management which is a critical part of the learning process.
And include at this stage, a journal or diary that details your trades, with mistakes and mishaps and wins. While some mistakes are obvious, like overtrading correlated pairs sometimes there is no rationale as to why a trade failed to make a profit. That’s a normal occurrence and could just be market sentiment favouring a fundamental event.
What is most important is for you to determine what kind of trader suits your lifestyle and build a system around it. That is your strategic edge. Simplicity is key - do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Your investment phase is very much your choice how you hope to proceed. I would suggest you don’t trade live until you consistently at least break even on your demo account for at least three months.
Some people would suggest earlier, but until you have the right mind set in place you’ll find it an uphill battle to be profitable long term.
As for mentors, I would avoid travelling that path until you are confident that a like-minded pro trader would be able to provide guidance on what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong - and provide tips and improvement suggestions. IMO experience these mentors are few and far between.
I’ll leave you with one 2021 tip. A successful strategy is one where the profitable win rate percentage is within 4% of trading either a long or short position.
Best of luck.
3 Likes
Hey steve,
Thank you so much for your feedback.
I will incorporate every bit of your feedback into my roadmap, since, despite of being a newbie, it all makes sense to me.
I’ll setup the demo account as soon as I’m done with the fundamentals.
Also, if you would like to suggest some learning resources, I’d be eager to ear it.
Thank you so much,
Diogo
How to become a Bulletproof trader by Steve Ward. You can watch for free on YouTube. It’s just over an hour long. IMO, whilst not everything will be applicable for you, it does explain the mind set that you should have when trading live.
Best of luck on your journey to success - for me, it’s the continuing challenge why I trade forex.
1 Like
Hi. You have an amazing plan for a beginner. Just keep learning and practice on a demo for some more time and see if you get any better. Good luck to you.