It’s Quora Thursday: Part-Time Forex Traders… If it were only so easy.
Trying to balance being a Part-Time Forex Trader, a Full-Time job, and life is not exactly easy. In the unfortunately traditional approach to trading on the FX Market, this is an unrealistic expectation and in most cases short-lived. It sounds so easy, but it is difficult in execution and aimless in the grand scheme of things. It’s a real question from Quora and it should be answered so that when someone else is considering this same thought, they are deprogrammed and see things in a different light.
See, it is a real question!
To best answer this question, let’s break it down by the parts of the question.
Is it possible?
Sure, many things in this world are indeed possible. This is not an impossible task, but this is not exactly a strongly thought out question, but many of those entering Retail Forex are not thinking things through anyway. Is it possible to attain success by one’s own definitions? Sure. Is it easy? No. Is it likely? No.
What is success?
The definition of success depends upon every individual. Is wasting four hours a day waiting for a trading opportunity and rooting on positions part of a profile of a general definition of success or anyone’s personal definition of success? It should not.
Here’s the problem, the vague goals of the majority of retail participants doom them to an eventual world where Retail Forex is banned because they will be viewed as victims by governmental regulatory bodies.
The vague concept of success and expecting to attain massive wealth from what is viewed to be very little effort is not a part of the recipe for profitability.
A Part-Time Forex Trader?
Here’s the problem with this idea. Trading part-time means that the trader is doing the following:
- Placing manual trades when the vast majority of trading volume are automated traders.
- Limiting themselves to monitoring trades for a few hours a day in a 24/5 market.
- Not able to necessarily keep track of their trades during off-hours.
- Placing a considerable amount of time into time spent at a terminal.
Humans cannot commit to trading in this market for 24/5, which mean that they inevitably are going to miss out on trades. An even shorter trading window means that the opportunities are fewer.
In theory, aren’t all manual traders… part-time traders? Consider that as a Forex Trader, there is always going to be a window of time missed. After all, people cannot remain awake for 120 hours a week.
However, there is hope.
The keys to profitability are there.
- Choose an ECN Broker.
- Don’t trade in only one trading account, have sub-accounts running different strategies simultaneously.
- Don’t overleverage.
- Don’t place manual trades.
- Only use tested automated strategies and monitor/adjust accordingly.
- Don’t be undercapitalized.
- Don’t read the forums.
- Don’t pay attention to other traders or gurus.
- Have clear and reasonable goals and benchmarks.
- Have other investments as well and do not trade non-discretionary funds.
It may seem repetitive, but maybe someone reading this will have a great awakening. It’s possible to turn a profit in the Forex Market and have a life. Believe it or not, the less time you spend at the terminal, the better.
Who knows? With this sort of an approach, your Forex Trading Account may just pay for your annual holiday/vacation budget. That’s pretty nice!
For readers, wondering how the blog schedule works:
- Monday: Market News and Insight from the Big Picture
- Tuesday: Wildcard Article, typically coding or technology related.
- Wednesday: Offshore Formations and Retail FX Industry Insight
- Thursday: Featured Quora Question
The post Is it Possible to Be a Successful Part-Time Forex Trader? appeared first on freevestor.
