Recently I wrote about the best way to learn forex trading after which one can train himself to be a successful forex trader. Learning and practising what was learned, are two completely different things. You can learn and still not be good at something. Pardon my loquacity, but I just want to share a few thoughts.
In my opinion, to be a good forex trader will be to be able to combine all the analytical elements: Fundamental, technical and sentimental analyses. Of course a good trader will be someone who can do combine all these and still be profitable. After all, what’s the sense in doing all three well and not make a positive net profit at the end of the trading cycle? I have met a lot of people who use only one form of analysis and they are doing well. That doesn’t make them bad traders as long as the profits are coming in. And hold your horses, I am not saying a good trader should use all forms of analyses. The message here is, to me, a good trader is one who can use all forms of analyses and still make profits. Meaning he’s robust and profitable under any circumstance and knows how to manoeuvre his way through every market situation. You get the idea. Good traders understand very well all three aspects of analyses. And this is the first point in learning to be a good trader.
To be a good forex trader and successful, by applying all three forms of analyses will also mean spending a lot of time trading a demo account and making it profitable over an extended period of time. While this is not the best way to learn forex trading, it is one step closer to becoming a good forex trader. I would say a year of demo trading is enough to include all fundamental events that move the markets and learn about them and how they make currencies behave. Trading demo can be boring sometimes because there’s no drama, no emotion, it’s feels more or less like a fifty-year-old playing with a Spider Man figurette. But you want to be a good forex trader, then do it.
Another important step to becoming an above average trader is to have a trading mentor, someone with years of proven track record to guide you to learn the ropes. From such people you can learn simple things as when and how to enter and exit trades for profits. It’s not hard finding such mentors, you’d have to get a word-of-mouth recommendation as blindly searching Google for such people will only present you with crooks, most of the time. These people won’t offer their services for free. As a matter of fact they come quite expensive. But it’s worth it. Finding a mentor is not the only way to get good at trading and learn things fast, but it’d be good to find one from the beginning to help you. If a mentor appears to charge very cheaply, especially someone you don’t know, you should be suspicious. And by cheap I mean, something below $50/hour of live consultation. That being said, you should be careful at the same time when you feel a mentor is charging too much. That’s why it’s best to get mentors recommend to though people you know or trust.
Nothing comes cheap. Good traders have in one form or another invested time or money into something for an experience in return. It could be books, webinars or courses. The are plenty out there in the wild. I can’t make any personal recommendations as to which courses to pay for but when it comes to books, Alexander Elder is one guy to look out for. And with webinars, you can always trust the content from Richard Perry of Hantec Markets. Richard is a very experienced forex markets analyst who provides free educative materials through FX Street.
The path to being a good trader will lead nowhere without mentioning mastery over emotions and psychology. There shouldn’t be anything like sad or happy times. One thing to know here is accumulation of pips and accepting the fact that some days can be very rough and moving on when things get real bad. If you can’t do this, you might want to consider investing elsewhere. All good traders have at one point in time lost money, big money. I have, and so have you (or will you) but that shouldn’t end the journey because I believe anytime a loss is made, something is learned to be a better trader. Something that will possibly prevent us from losing more in the future.
There are no magic tricks anywhere. The market is very dynamic and so you should, learn fast and always, everyday with any chance you get and keep practicing a lot on demo and real accounts (with small lots if you’re not good just yet) and in no time you’ll hopefully see the results and profits that you want.