I WANT TO BE A FULL TIME TRADER
By: Andrew Mitchem
The Forex Trading Coach www.TheForexTradingCoach.com
“I would love to one day become a full-time Forex trader. When I started playing around with FX about a year ago, I thought it was going to be “easier” than it actually was. Obviously, since then I have learnt that like most things, what you put in is what you get out”
“I think we all know that WE are ourselves our greatest enemy when having to overcome Fear and Greed, two of the main challenges when talking about trading psychology”
These are extracts from 2 emails I received recently from my trading clients.
As a former dairy farmer I know that there are no short cuts in any business, especially not in farming or trading. If you don’t put in the effort or you try to take short cuts or unnecessary risks, you will end up paying for it.
Too many traders want instant results and that is why many farmers do well as traders. We know that it takes a while to bring in the harvest and if you skip one step of the preparation phase, the whole crop will be ruined.
I have prepared a list of the important steps which will help your trading.
1. Use a demo account when learning how to use the trading platform. Open a demo account with roughly the same size as you intend to trade on your first live account.
2. When you change to a live account, do nothing different to what you did on your demo account.
3. Start with a small live account regardless of what size account you eventually aim to have.
4. Once you have proven to yourself your ability to take trades and pick good trades, then look at increasing the account size slowly.
5. Always keep the percentage you risk per trade the same regardless of your account size. Look to make a consistent percentage return and do not get concerned about the actual monetary return. That will come later.
6. Ensure you have a high reward:risk when you enter a new trade. This will ensure that you don’t need to be correct on every trade in order to be profitable.
7. Have a daily routine for your trading and stick to it.
8. Don’t try adding systems, changing a system or breaking the rules just because you have had a few losing trades in a row.
9. Don’t think that you can get revenge on the market by doubling the correct position size just because you’ve had a few losing trades or this time you think this trade is a certainty.
10. Learn to trust in yourself and the system you trade.
11. Understand that back testing a system and finding it was profitable does not mean it will work in real time in the future.
12. Realise that simply by adding more indicators, it will not make a bad strategy become a good strategy.
13. Over optimising a system can often be the worst thing you can do to a mechanical strategy.
14. Unsubscribe to the constant barrage of email trying to sell you FX items, such as trading robots, new indicators or anything else that for $37 or $97 will make you a multi-millionaire in the next 5 minutes.
15. Try to keep away from trading forums. I like to use forums such as Forex Factory for the latest news and calendar events but the discussion forums are generally populated by people who cannot trade but who are great to offer their advice.
16. Understand that the market conditions are always changing and accept that this is a part of trading.
17. Do not trade just for the sake of trading. If the market is quiet and there are no good setups then simply don’t trade. On the other hand when the market is showing plenty of good new trade setups, don’t be frightened to take those trades.
18. Learn to trade when it suits you. It’s important to trade a time frame chart(s) and a time of day that suits you.
19. Accept that to be a good trader it will take time. Exactly how long depends upon you but no matter what, it will definitely take time to understand and become successful.
20. Accept that even the best looking setups will fail. Trading is all about probabilities and no system will be correct all of the time.
21. Accept that there will be good and bad trades, good and bad days, good and bad weeks, good and bad months and good and bad years.
22. Accept that most people will not understand what you do but they will be quick to offer their advice such as telling you you’re a gambler, or that someone they know lost all of their money from trading.
23. Don’t give up when times are hard and don’t go crazy and break the rules when times are good.
24. Have a passion for trading. Be excited by it and what it teaches you and by what it can offer you.
25. Smile and realise that you trade an amazing market that most people don’t even know exists.
