Why are you trading?

That’s even putting it mildly, if anything.

People who start trading forex specifically because they’re short of money or have great financial complications in their lives, for which they’re looking to forex trading as a solution really have no chance at all, in this game.

Having lack of financial stability and trading successfully are mutually exclusive. It can’t be stressed enough.

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Exactly, Charlie! People conveniently overlook the fact that servicing all the debts you owe has an impact on your net worth and capital flows.

Let’s spend 15 hours a week watching CNBC, staring at price charts, reading about markets to make 1 or 2% / month- all whilst paying 20% APR on a credit card!

Get debt free and save up $1,000 before you place a single trade!
Doing it the other way around will only ADD TO YOUR DEBT in the long run!! This is indisputable.

Why? B/c chances are after you see how hard it is to actually get debt free (can take years), you’ll want to actually PROTECT your money!! Not just give it away thinking you have ANY idea which direction the FOREX market is going to move!!

Horse before the cart, people!!

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Your points are strong and I agree with you in some issues there.

I for one do not advise anyone to trade forex because they want a quick way to make money. People have asked me to teach them and I’ve said no. They think I don’t want to teach them how to “catch fish” or am selfish with my knowledge, but I know they can’t handle all that forex comes with both now and in their next life. Forex trading is not for everybody.

We trade forex for various reasons, but money making is in everybody’s list. I trade for the money, for the knowledge and for the fun. For the knowledge because I’m fascinated by world macro economics and want to learn as much as I can and forex is my incentive. For the fun because as strange as it sounds, forex feels to me like gaming, and I get better the more I play it, just like you would in any game you love to play regularly.

However, you make it sound like no independent trader (retailer) could be profitable in forex in the long run. I disagree. Granted, there’ll be drawdowns and bad trades but with a good broker and proper education, you’ll succeed where most fail.

It’s not that the markets were designed to make the independent trader fail, but that it was not designed for independent traders to start with, but so was the internet.

I agree.

I didn’t get that, at all, from what ForexUnlimited said? (Or are you referring there to something said by someone else?)

Which “market” do you mean?

The interbank market certainly wasn’t designed for independent traders, but that isn’t the market in which almost all of them, including almost all this forum’s members, are trading.

Almost all of them are trading against counterparty “brokers”, and that market was set up exclusively for them. Fact.

And it was (for the most part) also set up to make them fail, too (this sentence is opinion, not fact, of course).

How could you not have gotten that from what he said? Why would I refer to what someone else said and not specifically say so in the context of conversation?

The thing you called Fact, is it truly an un-debatable fact? Point me to an online resource, not a conspiracy theory blog?

The way you guys sound here, if you were to have your way, you’d nuke Forex Trading from outer space.

Stick around long enough on any forum geared toward trading and you’ll see patterns start to repeat themselves.

Mainly- (1) under-funded (2) over-leveraged (3) looking to ‘get rich quick’ folks with not a chance in hell in surviving long term. They’ll get lucky in waves, stop trading for x months or x years, but always come back and the process starts over.

I’m living proof of it. Talk to any senior members around here, and they’ll tell you the same. The first 3-5 years are brutal b/c there are so many moments of defeat, yet you just keep coming back. At the end of it all, you find yourself with an automatic investing plan simply scooping up SPY each month or a few mutual funds here and there, checking the markets once or twice a month. You realize that you’re making more money, consistently, and actually building wealth but not hitting the buy or sell button at all!

Wealth (real wealth) is built slowly. It always has been, and always will.

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