At what point would it be safely suggested to quit your day job and trade forex as your main means of making money? I’m sure there will be lots of responses from people saying it depends on the person and the lifestyle you want…yea ok. So I want to hear from someone who has actually quit their day job and trades for themselves. At what point did you decide that you were consistent enough with your trading and the money you already had saved was enough in case you had a bad run that you could recover and it wouldn’t hurt you?
Can you cover the list of parameters for me? Such as…after 6 months of positive gains on your account, you saw that you could continue the same routine indefinitely without other income; or once you reached $100,000 in your account (hypothetically assuming) starting from $1,000 you decided this was the time. Or anything else that influenced your decision…
When you feel as if you are making consistent income from your trading. If you have made steady gains per day - x2 of your employment overall over 1-2 years then you can think about quitting your job. I tend to trade longer term so I can stay away from the desk.
I’ve started threads like this and I know there are several others. I came to be trading successfully after my first 18 months and was thinking the same thing. But this last month has been very tough going, because I did a few dumb things. Several things come to mind, but to start with, the market has multiple personalities and goes through changes over the course of a year. I would say to anyone (especially me) that before I quit my day job, I want to be able to be profitable over a longer period 2-3 years and having seen different things. I sure want to do this professionally, so I’m there with you.
Yes, markets seem to be phase based - move in one ‘pattern’ for about 2-4 months then change pattern. Makes one single strategy difficult to implement.
I would recommend that you consider it after you have generated your desired monthly income over a 12 month period and have enough money in an emergency account to last you for an additional 12 months to cover all your living expenses.
the market has multiple personalities and goes through changes over the course of a year.
Yeah I think that is one of the things we as traders have to be careful of. Lets say you do extremely well when the market is going through a certain cycle, what if that cycle changes and does not suite your strat anymore? As a trader you will have to adapt. I personally would love to go full time in trading FX, but I would not throw all my eggs in the FX market, I would spread my eggs in different markets so if something were to go wrong with my FX trading I would still have other portfolios adding to my income.
I think you should know when its time to go pro. Just like its time to go pro playing golf, you just know that you can do it. Too many traders decide that they can be pro after sinking a birdie. Its crazy.
