You are thinking like a self directed home trader and seeing the market movers and shakers in the same light. It ain't like that. It's a loud roller coaster adrenalin fueled ride and when the day is over you are so pumped up you look for action. All kinds of action. Those idiots are paid fortunes because they perform, and when the music stops they come back from lunch to find a security guard has their belongings in a cardboard box and their door pass doesn't work. Yes the stress is one level below front line war and you earn your bucks. Conservation of capital is vital for you, but winning the risk game is all it's about for them. And when they win they crow for all to hear.
Trading forex (or all markets) is just like getting to know a woman. It's volitile as hell at first but as time goes on you learn how to read and anticipate her moods. You learn what time of day is the right time to ask for a hug and the right time to ask for sex. Once you know her and are married to her, she'll still hit you with some unexpected drama. But at this point you are equiped to deal with everything, as long as you remember when to ask for a hug vs sex.
All markets can feel like a scam at times. As far as i am concerned the real scam is the stockmarket. FX can be a scam if you try to compte against your market maker. FX can seem illogical because there are so many factors at work. When you strat doesn'twork (assuming you have several ) just stop trading that particular market.
Impatient traders can churn through an account in an afternoon. Patient traders enjoy the fact that currencies, whether traded as spot cross rates or as fututres contracts, move in very recognizable price action patterns. You just have to wait for it ... wait for it ... Of course, every retail forex market maker enjoys certain edges over the retail trader, and this means that market will not be as forgiving of the retail trader's mistakes as it might be if the trader is trading futures instead. Patience and waiting for clear, high probability set ups is essential to surviving and profiting at a bucket shop. But forex, whether spot or futures is not a scam, and it is very tradable. My biggest fear with forex is that the powers that be decide to attempt a renewed fixed exchange rate system and take floating rates off the table. But until then ... wait for it ... wait for it ... and trade on!
Totally agree! I only look at weekly charts in forex and in the last five years I made tons of money trendtrading the longer term trends
I wondered exactly the same thing! There are probably hundreds of reasons why it could never happen but how about one world currency! Something a little less far-fetched, they could quite easily introduce restrictions on currency speculation like they're trying to do with some commodities, central banks are always complaining about speculative volatility and having an orderly market. Like you say, until then.....
Utter Nonsense!!! There are numerous guys who traded foreign exchange for institutions and now either run their own independent business or trade semi-independently for hedge funds which is not a whole lot different from trading on one's own aside from funding. Those guys I know do seem to do very well. Any retail book that risks more than 0.5%-1% per trade of total account size is by definition overleveraged no matter whether you trade fx, stocks, options, futures. From my observation I would guess that 90-95% of those who blew out in fx were overleveraged to the hilt or had no respect for cutting losing positions or both. How is this different from any other asset class?