My forex aspirations

[MattaMidus]

I figure since I plan on spending alot of time on this forum learning and helping others I might as well explain what my aspirations are in my FOREX career. I invite everybody to share what their aspirations are also.

I first found out about the FOREX market when I was a Junior in High school. It appealed to me because of the freedom that it could theoretically give you in the financial world. I didn't actually get into the FOREX scene until I was a Sophomore in college. I started out with FX club as my broker. (I know they have low marks but I was just starting out and their advertisement caught my attention) Any ways ever since then I have been constantly practising and learning as many aspects of the market as I could. My ultimate goal in the FOREX market is financial freedom. I plan on going full time trader/investor as crazy as that sounds. I just don't want to get stuck in our financial institutions modern day version of slavery. Work to live dont live to work that's what I always say and I see FOREX as my ticket out of economic slavery. I know I sound crazy but I just wanted the FPA community to know where Im coming from and I would love to hear other members aspirations for their FOREX career.

Thanks
-MattaMidus

 

[Ricex]

Good luck, I like your King Midas influence, but of course his gift turned out to be more of a curse.......... I hope it turns out better for you.

 

[MattaMidus]

Ha Ha for sure
Whats your story Ricex?

 

[Ricex]

I'll spare you the shocking detail of how I ended up deciding to watching candles for a living and the perilous unpredictable journey that it turned out to be, but suffice to say that at the root of it all was the idea that I could maybe retain some sense of freedom.

I studied economics at university to degree level but it bored me to tears, still does, and I was unable to stomach doing the postgrad stuff which is the stuff that really counts with employers, so that was the end of that.

It will be 8 years next June that I started trading in the forex markets full time with it's up's and down's I suppose like anything else. It's not a bad way to make a living if you treat it as a business and stick to a disciplined approach, think long term and have a plan of action. Be realistic with your expectations and your abilities and trade accordingly. Start small and build up as things start to fall into place. It's hard at the start, very hard, that's why I don't mind helping out beginers, try and compound as much as possible, a decent amount of capital will help enormously.

 

[MattaMidus]

Wise words. Thanks for the advice.
That sounds exactly like me. I am an Economics major at UNC right now and Ive got about year left off school. I initially started the Econ program because of forex but Ive learned a very small amount that has actually helped. Its relieving to hear that some one else actually wanted to make this their career also. I was beginning to wonder if it was even possible with how slow Ive been progressing.

 

[Forexwatchman]

Since it sounds like you're young and therefore won't have a whole lot of capital, then the first lesson you must learn above all else is money management. I know when I first started out that was the most boring part of this venture but if you're sincere about doing this full time then you must treat it like you would any other business. I never risk more than 10% of my capital on my total trades but it's a golden rule by most experts to never risk more than 2% on any one trade and no more than 6% of your capital on all outstanding trades combined. With the new NFA margin guidelines that took effect on Nov 29th for all licensed brokers the days of 1:400 leverage are over, but understand that by following the percentages above, a margin call should be out of the question anyway regardless of the leverage you're using.

I know I get longwinded at times so I'll sum this up because I lost a lot of hard earned money overnight in order to finally understand this money management lesson.
Let's say you're a god-awful trader, meaning you lose 70% of the time and win 30% of the time every week. You can still make a living at this if you follow this simple rule: Cut your losses short and let your profits run. Going off that 70/30 loss/win ratio if you made 10 trades one week and 7 of out of those 10 lost a total of 140 pips (that's 20 pips lost on each trade) but you did win 3 of them and on those let your profits run (so let's say all three were for at least 50 pips on average) then at the end of the week you'd STILL be up at least 10 pips - if not more - even though you lost 70% of the time on average!

That's a pretty severe example but one that I throw out there to prove my point that all these slick expert advisors and thousand dollar marketing campaigns for "Forex Mastery" courses are useless if in essence you can still lose 70% of the time and still come out a winner at the end of the week just by following a good money management strategy. Cut your losses short and let your profits run. That's all I'll say for now.

 

[MattaMidus]

Yea I am pretty young I just turned 21 actually and my capital reserves are extremely low so I'm taking your advice to heart. Sounds like money management will greatly improve my chances of success. So basically not only should I optimize my strategy but I should also optimize my money management so I can give myself a mathematical advantage that can possibly turn a 70% loser into a profit.

 

[Ricex]

Yes sound money and risk management are what divides the winners from the losers. Spend as much time as you can studying this and you'll be doing yourself a big favour, honestly if there is a holy grail out there it's this.

Check this out if you haven't already : https://www.forexpeacearmy.com/forex-forum/forex-basics-boot-camp/2272-how-manage-risk-while-forex-trading.html

 

[pepper1]

I'm sure that all forex traders have the same aspirations, i hope you achieve success MattaMidus.

 

[cowmadagan]

I have one thing to expand on from Forexwatchman, and one question.
The thing I want to expand on is how to know your actual risk. I used to go by a strategy where I felt that since the worst thing that could happen on a 10K lot is to be off by about 500pips, and I could wait if I used a combination of sufficient margin and skewed opposing cross hedges. I'd consider my account balance as the actual measure of my success and figure that if my account grew faster than my unrealised p/l then the extra money was basically like money tied up in the bank. By skewed cross hedges I mean that if I saw that my EUR/USD guess was wrong and going down all day, I'd just buy USD/CHF because the Euro and the CHF usually do the same things.
I don't recommend this strategy, but that's not my point. My point is that I didn't actually feel like I was exposed. The only way to limit your exposure is through stops, and one person pointed out to me in the past that getting stopped out is a good thing because if you're so certain on your trade it gives you the opportunity to enter at a place that will increase your profit even more.
My question is that if you let your profits run, don't more of them become losses? If you just mean move your stops up as it goes, or to always use a minimum of two lots so you can take partial profits throughout and reenter and thus limit your exposure if you get a spike with no valleys?