MY EXPERIENCE WITH FOREX TRADING
- Forex trading is not a means to get rich quickly.
- Using too much leverage can turn profitable strategies into losing ones.
- Retail sentiment can be a powerful filter for trading.
However, my plan failed. Trading 300k lots on a $10,000 account proved to be unforgiving. I lost 20% of my account in just three weeks. I was blindsided and didn’t know what went wrong. Fortunately, I stopped trading at that point and was lucky enough to get a job with a forex broker. For the next few years, I worked with traders worldwide and continued to learn about the forex market. This experience played a significant role in my development as a trader. After three years of profitable trading, I joined the team at TradNx to help others become successful or more successful traders.
I share this story because I believe many traders can relate to starting in this market, not achieving the expected results, and not understanding why. Here are the three things I wish I had known when I started trading Forex.
1. FOREX IS NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEMEHowever, this does not mean that Forex trading is not a worthwhile pursuit. Many successful Forex traders trade for a living. The difference is that they have developed their skills over time and grown their accounts to a level that can generate sustainable income.
I often hear about traders targeting 50%, 60%, or even 100% profit per year or per month. However, the risk they take on is likely to be similar to the profit they are targeting. In other words, attempting to make 60% profit in a year could result in a loss of around 60% of your account in that same year.
“But Rob, I’m trading with an edge, so I’m not risking as much as I could potentially earn,” you might say. That’s true if you have a strategy with a trading edge. Your expected return should be positive, but without leverage, it will be relatively small. And even with an edge, we can still experience losing streaks. When we add leverage to the equation, that’s when traders try to achieve those high gains - which can also result in excessive losses. Leverage can be beneficial up to a point but can turn a winning strategy into a losing one.
2. LEVERAGE CAN BE A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
This is something I wish I had understood sooner. Using too much leverage can turn a profitable strategy into a losing one.
Imagine you have a coin that pays out $2 when it lands on heads and loses $1 when it lands on tails. Would you flip that coin? Most likely, you would flip it repeatedly. When the odds are 50/50 between earning $2 or losing $1, it’s an easy decision to make.
Now imagine the same coin, but this time if it lands on heads, your net worth triples; if it lands on tails, you lose everything you own. Would you still flip that coin? Probably not, because one unlucky flip could ruin your life. Even though the odds are the same as in the first example, no rational person would take this gamble.
This is how many Forex traders view their trading accounts. They risk everything on one or two trades and end up losing their entire account. Even if their trades have an edge like in our coin-flipping example, just one or two unlucky trades can wipe them out completely. This is how leverage can turn a winning strategy into a losing one.
3. SENTIMENT AS A GUIDE CAN IMPROVE YOUR ODDS
The third lesson I learned, which may not come as a surprise to those who follow my articles, is the value of using the IG client sentiment tool (IGCS). I have written extensively about this topic. IGCS is the best tool I have ever used and remains an integral part of almost all of my trading strategies.
IGCS is a free tool that shows the ratio of traders who are long to those who are short on each major currency pair. It is intended to be used as a contrarian index, where we aim to do the opposite of what the majority is doing. Using it as a directional filter for my trades has completely transformed my trading career.
TAKE ADVICE FROM MY EXPERIENCE
If I could go back and give my younger self three pieces of advice before starting to trade forex, this would be my list. Ultimately, if you’re new to the forex market, the best thing you can do is take the time to learn as much as possible, starting with the basics. Read guides, stay up to date with current events, and follow market analysts on social media.
FOREX TRADING TIPS FAQS
How much can you earn trading forex?
Forex traders can make significant returns on a single trade due to the availability of leverage, which allows them to control a larger position with a smaller amount of margin. However, leverage is a double-edged sword - while it can lead to large gains, it can also result in large losses. Relying on excessive leverage as a strategy often leads to the depletion of your account capital over time. This is because it only takes one unfavorable market move to trigger substantial losses.
Your expectations for returns on investment play a crucial role. When traders expect too much from their accounts, they tend to use excessive leverage, which often leads to losing accounts over time. Treat forex like any other market and aim for reasonable returns by using conservative amounts of leverage, if any.
Forex is a 24-hour market, making it popular among day traders, swing traders, and part-time traders due to the convenience of trading at any time. Regardless of your trading style, use small amounts of leverage, if any.
If you were to add a fourth lesson learned from starting to trade forex, what would it be?
I mentioned leverage earlier. We conducted research on millions of live trades and compiled our findings in a Traits of Successful Traders guide. In the guide, we discuss risk-to-reward ratios and their importance. As humans, we also touch on the psychological aspects of trading and why we may still make poor choices even when we know what’s right. Sometimes our biggest obstacle is our own mindset.
Do you have any helpful guides for new forex traders?
We have put together a comprehensive guide for those new to forex trading. The guide covers topics such as why traders like forex, how to decide what to buy and sell, reading quotes, pip values, lot sizing, and more. From my experience, learning how to choose which market to trade in forex is crucial.
We also recommend the resource ‘Building Confidence in Trading,’ which can be found in the beginners’ section of our trading guide resource page.
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