Is Trading Hard For You?

That's a question I would love to hear others answer. We all know that it takes a lot of time and patience to trade successfully (or even break-even 😄), however is it difficult?

I'm for one don't think it's difficult as long as you enjoy doing it (which I am). Looking from other's perspective, you need to watch charts all day long and look for patterns, try and develop programs to do that for you - now multiply it by several years and you know why some may think this is impossible to accomplish. Nevertheless, as with everything worth in life, you must work hard to get it.

What do you think?

yes, it is very hard for me 😳, although it becomes easier with time. it's really hard to keep at it after school and work hours while your friends are going out, especially when you don't know if it will make it worth while.

but i learned a lot about technical analysis and also starting to experiment with programming to explore some of my theories. i think forex is harder than a degree because you're your own teacher with zero guidance.

I think 'retail trading' is split into three defined areas, both with different levels of difficulty.

The first being the dreaded learning curve, before you even attempt to place a trade, or generate a trading plan you need to learn the 'language' and you need to get a good foundation. This part is not high on the difficulty list, as its just a matter of learning text book examples, and in some cases drawing pictures ;)

The second level, and this is by far the most difficult and time consuming in my view, is the trading method/plan stage. You have you basic knowledge, and now you have to do practical testing - Demoland as I call it. This takes a long time as your are in hindsight generating trail and error methods of trading until it can be seen that you have a possible edge. Once this is found, you then have to do ample back and forward testing to see if your own back-testing was biased in any way. After all we all want to show success, and sometimes we can influence our results to make this show.

The final stage, which I find easy, is the real time implementation of your now 'new found' trading edge with a live real money account. Providing you have done ample testing in the previous stage, you will have many bench-marks to work from, you will know what is normal, and what to expect. You will also know what is unusual, and if this happens in your live trading you know to stop and re-analyse your own trading.

So many new traders trade the markets with a live accounts and have no idea if their results are normal, or way outside the expected!

ChallengeFX, that is an excellent view on things.

I often move from stage 3 to stage 2 and vice versa - this is a never ending vicious cycle which I can't seem to be able to break.

Waiting for stage 3 to trade a real money account is quite hard - you often find something that may appear as an edge and then the psychological factor kicks in - you quickly fund a real account and trade it away... moreover, stage 3 often proves stage 2 to be wrong.

The hardest thing I find is having the patience to wait for a trade set-up to complete before I make the entry...that would be a psychological factor, I think!

It's interesting that most retail traders are in the same position..95% to be precise! I have spoken to very few successful retail traders in the past and the one attribute they have (which I don't) is PATIENCE. Overtrading and not waiting for the right set up is a common failing because of course we all want to get rich quick. I have thought many times when I watch price going in the opposite direction to my trade why I just didn't take the opposite position to what I originally thought. I would be rich by now! Has anybody actually tried this?

FX trading is the hardest way to make easy money!

Personally I have found trading very hard at times, but I enjoy it and am 100% determined to make a long term success of it. And we only have one shot at this life, so we might as well take a risk. I don't want to settle for an average life working 9 till 5 till I retire at 65 and have to live on the pension and a little superannuation.

sd59 posted:
I have thought many times when I watch price going in the opposite direction to my trade why I just didn't take the opposite position to what I originally thought. I would be rich by now! Has anybody actually tried this?

FX trading is the hardest way to make easy money!

I have thought exactly the same thing 😄

I've even read articles about it, however it doesn't work - statistically such a trading system will have a win ratio of 50% - since you start with negative odds as you have spreads, that will end up as a losing system.

incometrader posted:
Personally I have found trading very hard at times, but I enjoy it and am 100% determined to make a long term success of it. And we only have one shot at this life, so we might as well take a risk. I don't want to settle for an average life working 9 till 5 till I retire at 65 and have to live on the pension and a little superannuation.

Yes, that's a dream we're all dreaming and is very hard to accomplish. Good luck to us all 😄

myfxpt posted:
The hardest thing I find is having the patience to wait for a trade set-up to complete before I make the entry...that would be a psychological factor, I think!

Man, I got exactly the same problem...waiting for set-up but I can't wait, I have to open position. I'm trying to get rid of this bad habit, but it's a real fight. Psychology is the most difficult thing on fx!!

Man, I got exactly the same problem...waiting for set-up but I can't wait, I have to open position. I'm trying to get rid of this bad habit, but it's a real fight. Psychology is the most difficult thing on fx!!

Why don`t you use more active strategy like scalping? I suppose If it`s too hard for you, you should change it.