Smart Forex Newbie... Opinions needed

D

dbase

First off, I would like to say hi and good day to all.

I am currently a web developer who has made very good money the past 5 years. (For my area, Im upperclass with that income)

I have a web app that sells for a $100 per license. I make 2k about week just off that leg of my business.

Lately I have been looking at Forex day trading and I am sure I have the brains to do it. If I can code complex code and algorithms surely I can trade Forex. right?

I'm not one to jump in the water head first. I tend to soak up as much information about a investment/task/project before I execute it with real money and time.

However the trading information I find on the web is the most skewed I have ever seen on any subject. Some people say Forex is the devil and will take all your money. Some say that brains and self control will make you millions. Lots of people saying day trading is good are trying to sell you a damn book.

I see numbers that 80% of new traders fail? I keep hearing no day trader has a long term track record!

I would like to hear about it from you guys. Also where is some good Forex learning material at? All I find is biased spammy junk.

Thanks
Dale
 
Not necessarily. Just because you're intelligent and good at what you do doesn't mean that success will translate to something else.

I'm new to forex, but I've been trading other instruments for years. Success is much more about your emotional state than your intellect. When your money is at risk and there's the potential to rake in profits, all your rationality seems to go right out the window. You become afraid and/or greedy. Your ability to stick with your system despite these emotions is what leads to long-term success.

There's no way to get rid of fear or greed, let's face it we're humans, we aren't robots with the ability to switch off our emotions. But you can learn to relax and enter and exit trades based on a system rather than your emotions. Those feelings are still there but they become less and less pronounced and don't dictate your trades.

Some of the best education you can possibly get is available in the journals forum. People who blow their accounts tend to revenge trade (try to "get even" when the "market" takes their money), overtrade both in the size of positions and the number of trades, they blame everyone and everything else for their own mistakes, they constantly change strategies hoping the find the holy grail, their journals are heavily laced with a whole range of emotional states depending on what's happening with their accounts or individual trades, they become excited and elated when they're winning, and they become angry and depressed when they're losing.

Position trading (long-term trades) is generally easier emotionally because you have a lot of time to assimilate what's happening. Forex is my first attempt at daytrading and so far I find that my emotions are pretty much in check. But I wouldn't want to start with daytrading.

It's incredibly important to learn that successful trading is not an adrenaline-junkie extreme sport. Success is the slow and steady grinding of both profits and losses. And I think it's much harder to learn that lesson when you're jumping in and out of the market over a matter of seconds, minutes or hours.

I know that with my position trading I often forget to even check what's happening. I notice that at least some of this attitude has transferred to daytrading. I sit back and relax, reading, listening to music, leaving the computer to answer the phone, let the dog out, go to the bathroom etc. all without feeling any concern over trades I might be missing or even trades I'm currently in. There's ALWAYS another opportunity right around the corner. If not today then probably tomorrow.

Anyway I hope that helps. Who knows, maybe I'll blow my forex account and none of what I just said will be worth anything :)
 
Quote from dejatrader:
Not necessarily. Just because you're intelligent and good at what you do doesn't mean that success will translate to something else.
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You are right, and thanks for the reply.

I do have
*Brains
*Money management skills
*Time
*Im at a computer 20 hrs a day anyways
*Money
*Patience

To me those factors seem to be a start basis of a good trader.


Quote from amedhussaini:
no one will teach you to trade.
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What a great answer. I wonder how much thought you put into that reply. Or did you not think at all and just wiggle your fingers a bit to increase your post count?

Also people will teach you anything. Especially when they can profit from it. It is the people that give their knowledge away completely for free that I want to learn from. These people offer solid information 90% of the time.
 
read a book, learn about the market, learn some strategies, try applying those strategies. You can get a demo account, but honestly it is a whole new ball game when it's your money. I think just open a small account trade the 2% or so of your account for a little while see where that goes.
 
I think Kathy Lien's book "Day Trading the Currency Markets" is a good intro to FX and the fundamental side. If you've never traded and you're going to use technical analysis you should get some primers on TA. John Murphy's book "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets" is a good one that you can probably get at your library or buy used somewhere.

Harold
 
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