Forex trading for a beginner
Discussion
Guys. Can the ‘man in the street’, (that’s me), without any knowledge of the financial markets (that’s me again) make (some) money from Forex trading ? I’ve seen these on the net, and obviously they ALL imply you can make money. My mate in the pub (we all have one, don’t we ) reckons that if you keep it simple, say only speculate with the pound, dollar and euro, so one doesn’t get to confused, stop when/if you make a small profit each day, and shut shop and go (back) down the pub if you make a loss, you can come out smiling. Comments from the PH’ers who actually do this for a living would be appreciated. Oh, nearly forgot. The target is to make enough to buy a Lamborghini Aventador after a year !!!! Go to have an objective !!
The reason I ask, is some years age I sat next to a guy where I was working who did Forex trading on his laptop during the day. He ONLY traded the dollar against the pound. He certainly made a steady profit, as he showed me his account. He started with £25k. Had £85k a year later. His 'system' was simple. Log on at about 9pm, and watch the £/$ trades for about an hour. If/when he was 'happy', he'd buy as appropriate. If the rate was moving pretty steadily in any direction, he'd gear himself quite high. If the market was bouncy, gear low. Then watch. If he was making a profit, wait for a while, then sell. Don't get greedy or ambitious. If he was loosing, sell quick. Start again tomorrow.
Fotic said:
robinessex said:
The reason I ask, is some years age I sat next to a guy where I was working who did Forex trading on his laptop during the day. He ONLY traded the dollar against the pound. He certainly made a steady profit, as he showed me his account. He started with £25k. Had £85k a year later. His 'system' was simple. Log on at about 9pm, and watch the £/$ trades for about an hour. If/when he was 'happy', he'd buy as appropriate. If the rate was moving pretty steadily in any direction, he'd gear himself quite high. If the market was bouncy, gear low. Then watch. If he was making a profit, wait for a while, then sell. Don't get greedy or ambitious. If he was loosing, sell quick. Start again tomorrow.
Do it, sounds failsafe. Thanks for the above guys. Being an Engineer, I'm of the 'proove it' principle before I believe anything. And as you say, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. I've long lost touch with the guy i watched, and he may have been pulling the wool over my eyes. I must admit I didn't know enough to aske the right questions. And yes, I think he was doing it by gut feeling. Well, that's what he told me. I think I'll just have a flutter on the lottery instead !!!!!!!!!
Shaoxter said:
FX is the most macro of all the markets, meaning that you need to keep up to date with all the news and data releases. Even then a random political event or war could throw your strategy out of the window.
Your friend was just day trading, yes some people do make money out of it but for every one of those people there's 2 people who've lost all their money.
You're better off trying your luck at online poker to be honest.
I can't bloody play poker either !!!!Your friend was just day trading, yes some people do make money out of it but for every one of those people there's 2 people who've lost all their money.
You're better off trying your luck at online poker to be honest.
Well, I just had to get a trading demo, and have a go
https://trade.plus500.com/Trade
I decided I was only interested, in the £ against the $ and the €. I sat for few days, just watching the rates changing against each other, and made 2 observations. If you follow the long term trend, over a few days, the + & - balance out, so basically, you can make a profit, but it ain't going to be a big one. Just steady. At the other end, trading over very short time scale, say as short as 1 minute, much larger changes would happen. The down side is, they are virtually unpredictable, and obviously don't correspond to the long term changes. So it's a gamble. I had £20,000 in my dummy demo account, and I traded with £500,000. I started actually trading with my demo account yesterday morning ( Wed 24th Sept). I only did the £ against the $. I obviously did a few more risky moves that I’d probably not do if it was real money, but that’s what a demo account is for. Anyway, as at the moment 14:13 on Thurs 25, I’m £1,844 UP. I’m under no illusion that by tonight, I could be negative, but I’m trying to develop a system or method. Here’s hoping !!!
Guys, am I doing anything wrong ?
https://trade.plus500.com/Trade
I decided I was only interested, in the £ against the $ and the €. I sat for few days, just watching the rates changing against each other, and made 2 observations. If you follow the long term trend, over a few days, the + & - balance out, so basically, you can make a profit, but it ain't going to be a big one. Just steady. At the other end, trading over very short time scale, say as short as 1 minute, much larger changes would happen. The down side is, they are virtually unpredictable, and obviously don't correspond to the long term changes. So it's a gamble. I had £20,000 in my dummy demo account, and I traded with £500,000. I started actually trading with my demo account yesterday morning ( Wed 24th Sept). I only did the £ against the $. I obviously did a few more risky moves that I’d probably not do if it was real money, but that’s what a demo account is for. Anyway, as at the moment 14:13 on Thurs 25, I’m £1,844 UP. I’m under no illusion that by tonight, I could be negative, but I’m trying to develop a system or method. Here’s hoping !!!
Guys, am I doing anything wrong ?
Dan_1981 said:
What's your profit as a % of your stake?
If you scale it down to what you'll actually be playing with - is it worth it?
4.5% per day. If/when I do it for real, my investment will be circa £1000. Don't tell the wife tho'........... She thinks I'm on the computer looking at porn !!!!!!!!!!!If you scale it down to what you'll actually be playing with - is it worth it?
Edited by robinessex on Thursday 25th September 14:42
Come on, pay attention at the back! The 'amount' in my demo account is £20,000. When I do a trade, I gear up by a factor of 25, so I trade with £500,000. I've used the same amount on all my trades. So the return so far is £1,844. This is 0.3688% of £500,000. But when the profit is dumped back into my account when I close a position, the £1,844 is 9.22% on £20,000 over 2 days.
walm said:
robinessex said:
That makes it 380 days to go to buying the Lambo Aventador !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just to give you a sense of how utterly bonkers what you are suggesting is......if you actually compounded your 4.5% daily gain and started with just £1,000 in 380 days...
...you would have £18.4 billion.
Surely there is a diference bewteen the roulett wheel, and the forex market. A roulette wheel is a random number generator, whilst the forex market is following some 'pattern' dictated by the 'investors' in it. Which is why I suppose that huge amount of time, money and effort is put into it writing programmes that try to identify this pattern, and invest accoringly. So maybe intuative investment/gambling MAY result in an edge which gives you a profit.
Maybe I ought to take the wifes suggestion, and look at porn instead.....................!!
Maybe I ought to take the wifes suggestion, and look at porn instead.....................!!
walm said:
robinessex said:
walm said:
robinessex said:
That makes it 380 days to go to buying the Lambo Aventador !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just to give you a sense of how utterly bonkers what you are suggesting is......if you actually compounded your 4.5% daily gain and started with just £1,000 in 380 days...
...you would have £18.4 billion.
Can't fault your ambition I suppose...
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