i just want to hear it from different people , why is trading forex CONSIDERD hard? or is it hard? or it’s easy?
in my opinion if you simply have a really good and effective strategy and risk & money management & a little more knowledge and experience , you are good to go , right? but what do you think?
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Trading is simple. Discipline is hard.
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Many people with stock trading or investing backgrounds rate forex as extremely risky. Very often they are not used to high leverage rates available from forex brokers: its quite possible when they opened a $5000 position in GE, they only had $5000.
Stocks generally rise with the major stock indices. So even if they knew nothing about the company whose shares they just bought, if the Dow and the S&P rise for the next 3 months, they will probably make money. And the indices have been bullish for decades so that’s a wonderful signpost - you only have to buy when price is rising and hold on tight when its not.
None of these things translate to forex.
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I think Forex is only hard for those new traders who has no strategy and risk and money management. Also if a trader has good knowledge and skills then forex is easy for him and can make good profit.
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The secret of successful forex trading above all, is guard your capital with your life. It’s never about making money, it’s all about NOT losing money.
So, the primary learning is Money management and keeping risk minimal. Which over 70% of Noobs ignore and fall by the wayside having blown their capital.
Keep in mind Forex trading is speculative, never, ever, an income source.
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To add to what @tommor said, many people frame the idea of trading in reference to equities. Company is doing awesome and fulfilling a genuine need in their industry = stock going up… yay! Company making bad decisions and failing in the market = stock going down. While the currencies of central banks can exhibit some of the same long-term trends, price action in forex is quite different. You are not basing valuation on a single entity like a company stock. You are trading the difference in valuation between the currencies of two central bank entities. If you are investing in Tesla, then what Tesla does in relation to their market is all that matters. If you are trading EUR/USD then anything that happens regarding central bank interest rates, consumer baskets, non-farm payrolls, etc. changing either in the US or across the Eurozone could affect the rate of that currency quote.
The way I see it, there are so many more contributing factors to currency valuation vs. stocks that many investors look at it and get (rightly) scared off.
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It is hard because we are biologically programmed to do the opposite of what good trading dictates.
Stocks, forex, gold, bitcoin, tulips, it matters not what instrument used none of us can hold back our greed or fear unless drilled over time to do so
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Forex becomes hard when newbies look for short cuts and start following the wrong path to become successful traders. One must always stick to the basics first and then develop trading strategies along with managing risk.
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Forex is not difficult, it all depends on the person.
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I would like to say that Forex trading is Easy but we make it difficult for us due to our Emotions.
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I don’t think you can compare Forex to Stocks. And I think you have a screw loose if you do.
The “players” involved are different. The first concern is the Country itself. Most everyone read recently how the Swiss currency was manipulating by their own government.
Now take that example and build upon it; The Swiss is manipulating their own currency while how many other Countries are also trying to move it up or down with their currency and they are possibly manipulating theirs?
Each Country that is paired up with the Euro is trying to either push theirs up or down. And then you have the Institutions/Banks trying to use their power to move a currency up or down. And then it ends with the little guy who had better have a large drawdown, or the ability to get in at the perfect time and see it move a little.
Far too many get stopped out because of manipulation. And everyone tries to justify why you are stopped out. They tell us “their is no manipulation” with a straight face. Even if the Swiss were caught. And it is disgusting. Then you have manipulation of spreads and you have margin.
But you cannot compare it to the simplicity of trading stocks. It is stupid to buy low and sell high with Forex because it keeps going even when all the arrows say it should not. But stocks have rules and reports and shareholders, etc. When you buy J and J at a good price, you watch as it goes to a target price given by think tanks. And we make money.
My husband and I learned the hard way that you do not go to places like OTA and allow them to sell you a Forex class. You may as well cast pearls before pigs. Waste of money and they know it.
As (I think) W.C. Fields once said, “there is a sucker born every minute.” And if you give your money to OTA or other so-called “Academies” you cant win because Forex is not designed to let you win. It is daily manipulation and it causes pain and empty pockets. Except for the Academy that introduces you to Forex. They sure get their payday.
Forex trading IS hard for the little person who gets caught up in the manipulation of currencies.
Trade stocks or the Futures equivalent of the currency. You will do much better.
I do agree with the words above of ENICKMA. Good points to consider. But those who say trade Forex generally have a motive behind them. Many sell indicators and many sell programs.
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It’s hard only to those who are impatient 💁
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Hi, so I just started forex trading and I can tell you from personal experience, it feels hard when you are getting your butt kicked by the market. However, I believe wholeheartedly that forex is a long-term game, and in the long run, results for a day/week/month don’t matter that much, unless you can’t survive long enough to get to the long game.
Sometimes I think we confuse easy/hard with fun/not fun. In aggressive trading (which I think we newbies are prone to do), profit is considered fun and loss is considered not fun; but this style will probably result in many losses (not fun, but perceived as hard). Backtesting, discipline, patience, learning when not to trade, and when to not trade (sound similar, but different completely), these are all hard topics. But I believe the best and most successful traders find these tasks enjoyable, because they love the game. Without a love for the game, a willingness to learn from mistakes, a willingness to make mistakes so you can learn from them, etc. I don’t think a trader can be successful. And failure is incredibly easy in this game, not hard like some would think. Success is hard, not in terms of execution, but in terms of putting in the work. As one of the lessons in the School of Pipsology mentioned (don’t remember which one), it’s the unseen hours of practice that allow teams and players to perform publicly. One thing trading stats/profits won’t show is the long, (hopefully hard) hours of work put in to be successful a system.
I believe successful traders will learn (as I am learning thanks to some hard lessons in the market) to love the hard work, because it makes the trading easier, but I don’t think its ever easy.
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No, not at all. Forex is never easy. I am afraid that’s not the right word. Forex can be simple (not easy) depending on the trader’s approach. I like a comment up the thread. The human mind needs to be reprogrammed if success will be achieved in Forex trading and this takes some real drilling.
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I agree with Imunest… i’m constantly fighting myself one strategy at a time.
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- You are trading against the Countries
- Stocks move 1-20% per day. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Currencies move less than 1% most of the time
- You are using high leverage
- You are risking too much to become a millionaire because of snake oil -so called- mentors
- And yes it’s hard. That’s the reason more than 80% traders lose their money.
- Read 5th two more times…!
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Majority of people who trade stocks. Pick a flavour of the month stock, with little or no leverage, and sit on it until it goes up a sufficient amount. This ‘strategy’ shouldn’t really work, but over the long term, it generally has worked, so everyone thinks stocks are easy.
In Forex, price movements are generally small, traders are generally using huge margin, where they are forced to use stop losses and/or not use stop losses to prevent the market always ■■■■-■■■■■■■ them out of good positions, and end up blowing up their accounts that 1 time in 10, when they are totally wrong and the market moves violently against them.
Also most people who trade Forex do so via cfd brokerages where the broker takes the otherside of the bet, as opposed to on an exchange with an actual live order book, and choosing a cfd broker is a shark infested minefield in itself.
It’s not really Forex that is so hard, it is trading on low time frame charts with large margin and tight risk tolerances, with a broker who starts not giving you fills if your win rate gets too high (FXCM), or who produce their own special Darth Maul light saber candles (ETX) that don’t appear on any other exchange, that is hard.
…although I have heard that Day Trading US stocks is (relatively) easy…never tried it myself though so couldn’t comment…maybe they tend to move in a more text book fashion or something, “ooh look, an ascending triangle, that means the price is going to go up! (and it does)”
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I love the challenge of forex trading, which when you learn more how the market acts and reacts, fundamentals are fascinating - not price movement which is technically boring.
I see stocks as long term investments, and unless it’s penny stocks also a bit dry for my taste. I also consider that market manipulation is over-rated in today’s environment mainly because the daily transactions run into trillions. For the average retail trader, being stopped out is possible, but in the long term, unlikely to affect their capital very much. It hasn’t affected mine, that’s for sure.
With the right mindset, trading forex is not that hard. One’s mindset when approaching the market is always the main cause of the so called hardship. The desire to make millions out of a small investment ( dollar and time) is fatal to most newbie traders. Overleveraging is the main cause of such hardship. Upon losing, the trader loses a tone of money they can not afford, hence they panic and try to make it back in no time.(which in most cases they don’t)
It is funny how much your own mind can conspire against you. It seems like the human mind is programmed to sabotage its own bearer. Unless if you are a robot, emotions are always going to play their part in making sure you do not make money in the market. It is so simple and easy to watch the market going against your trade, (growing the loss and decreasing your equity) than watch it going in your favor (increasing the profit and equity). Therefore it always comes natural for one to hold on to losers and cut winners too early.
Sometimes traders lack the discipline to wait for the market to tell them what to do. Instead, they try to predict the market movement beforehand. That is sooooo detrimental. However, if you employ a reactive approach, you are likely to go with the flow.
There are a lot of actions and events that may make one to conclude that forex trading is hard. But if you look closely, such actions and events are not the market’s fault but the trader’s. It’s all you. Not the market.
In short. forex trading is not hard. YOU ARE.
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See above in bold
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