Trading for a living. Tip #1

[jgerousis]

Fantasy Vs. Reality
The most important thing you need to check yourself for, if you want to be a professional trader, is the ability to identify your fantasies and quarantine them, as opposed to reality.

As a professional trade, I have been able to identify real forex issues, as opposed to dreams and fantasies. I have the ability to quarantine them, and put them aside. Without this skill, one can never achieve the goal of trading for a living.

I have ran across many traders, who dream of making millions, while they have a few thousand dollars in their accounts. One friend started with $2000, and wanted to be a full time trader! These are fantasies. Those people will try to open positions on a large scale, and thus endanger their account against margin calls, and thus a complete failure.

As I have mentioned in a previous tip, a 3% monthly gain on account is realistic. Amounts like 30% and higher, are just fantasies

[bossxero]

Originally Posted by jgerousis

Fantasy Vs. Reality
The most important thing you need to check yourself for, if you want to be a professional trader, is the ability to identify your fantasies and quarantine them, as opposed to reality.

As a professional trade, I have been able to identify real forex issues, as opposed to dreams and fantasies. I have the ability to quarantine them, and put them aside. Without this skill, one can never achieve the goal of trading for a living.

I have ran across many traders, who dream of making millions, while they have a few thousand dollars in their accounts. One friend started with $2000, and wanted to be a full time trader! These are fantasies. Those people will try to open positions on a large scale, and thus endanger their account against margin calls, and thus a complete failure.

As I have mentioned in a previous tip, a 3% monthly gain on account is realistic. Amounts like 30% and higher, are just fantasies

100% right! I totally agree.

[nicesurf]

What we need in trading is not amount of money but ampunt of PIPS. Those who can make alot of pips will make more money.

Nic

[StrategyTrainer]

Money management and a good strategy is the key to full time trading. Without one or the other and you will be funding the full timer accounts. That is what we teach how to become the full timer with profitable strategies and money management.

[FXSeo]

I've always shared with students and friends that trading for a living is not as easy or simple as it sounds. that's because there are several keys that go into the equation to ensure you are successful and stay that way (with regards to trading for a living).

One most important key is that you must be properly capitalized and if I were to poke at a general figure (i know the figure is specific to different traders), i would say to have at least $50k for trading.

2nd and last key i want to mention here (there are many others) is that you must be prepared for drawdown periods.

Cheers!

[michal32]

I disagree. I am living with forex trading and I earn 20% monthly on average for one year. My largest all-time drawdown was 40% of my trading capital. And I started with $3000. (When I started being profitable of course... I was a loser for one year and lost a lot of money before.)

You simply don't earn huge percents BECAUSE YOU DON'T BELIEVE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE. That's all. And if you don't believe, you cannot achieve it. There are no limits. YOU make the limits. Think about it.

[scorpion]

I agree and disagree because evidently there're a lot of conservative traders who consistently make 20% to 30% a year for 50 years, and there're also a lot of traders who fantasied becoming a millionaire from 500-dollar account of borrowed money and then actually became millionaires in a year of trading. So who's right? Who's wrong? It's correct either way. I believe the key to be successful consistently is in fact "following" one's system and the money management.

[jgerousis]

Scorpion, but the fantasied traders will blow out their account at anytime. Don't you agree?

[nicesurf]

We should control our trading before our account swept away. Get a very safe entry before we get profits.

Nic

[Btrader]

Originally Posted by nicesurf

We should control our trading before our account swept away. Get a very safe entry before we get profits.

Nic

I do agree! we really should know how to be careful in terms like that.. because in a blink of an eye, we might be eaten by a shark..