Is becoming a consistently profitable trader really that difficult?
I’ve been contemplating on this question for quite some time now. With the wealth of information, strategies and systems available for any aspiring trader, why is it still so difficult for someone to break into forex currency trading and make it?
When you look at the activity of trading on the surface, all you really need to do is to analyze the markets with simple and proven methods. When you have come to a decision on which way the market is most likely to move, you click on a button to either buy or sell.
Is The Problem In The Lack of Good Forex Trading Strategies?
In this case, I believe that it’s more like an overload of information when it comes to forex trading strategies and systems. While there are several unproven and overly complicated trading systems in the market, there are a couple of really good systems based on principles that have stood the test of time.
There are so many forex trading systems coming online all the time that it only encourages the worst habits in novices. To constantly jump from system to system is a sure recipe for failure as a trader. With system jumping, there just isn’t enough trades taken for the probability of the forex trading system to work in your favor.
My personal preference for trading forex manually is to trade on the longer time frames like the daily and 4H charts. Anything lower than that, I feel that the risk increases due to randomness as well as a corresponding increase in the amount of management needed. If you are searching for solid and robust trading strategies that trade on the daily and 4H charts, I personally prefer the LMT Forex Formula by Dean Saunders.
If I were to go into forex day trading or scalping, then I personally wouldn’t build my trading around discretionary systems. I’d go with a forex trading robot like the Forex MegaDroid, and only with a small portion of my overall trading portfolio.
This way, I’d be spared a lot of the emotional stress that comes with having my finger over the buy and sell button. 
So Why Aren’t More People Consistently Profitable as Forex Traders?
Other than the learning curve to understand the basics of technical analysis and using a good forex trading platform, I believe that the main reason lies in the forex trader himself. If someone else has managed to consistently make money in forex currency trader, then it is definitely an activity that can be duplicated successfully.
It’s a question of knowing what the right things to do are, and actually doing them.
And therein lies the problem. Even if a novice trader were to know what to do, it’s another question of actually doing it.
The issue of managing your own emotions and actions become paramount in your success as a trader. I know that I’ve fiddled with open trades often enough, and it’s still tempting to adjust stop losses and take profit targets. It’s understanding this “failing” in myself as a forex trader that I prefer to trade on the longer time frames where I don’t have to stare at the market prices ticking up and down causing my account equity to fluctuate. And have my emotions fluctuate with it.
It’s also for this reason that I now stay away from forex day trading as much as possible. Especially trying to scalp the forex markets manually for that 5 or 10 pip move several times a day. It’s not a life that I want to live because I believe that I should be the one in charge of my money, and not have my money in charge of me.
The Hardest Part of Becoming A Profitable Forex Trader
The hardest part of becoming a profitable trader is having to go through the learning curve. Not only of the markets, but also of the self in relation to trading.
It’s also having to deal with the beliefs and past experiences that we have to deal with when it comes to money. Our expectations towards what trading will do for us also causes a lot of problems as the markets move up and down.
However, it’s also unrealistic to expect a human being to have no emotions when it comes to trading. Emotions are part and parcel of who we are. While we can manage and reduce the intensity to some extent, I would think it is a very select number who actually are able to “let go” and let the market do its thing while they have a trade open.
Maybe successful traders have undergone some form of training to be monks or something.
So is it possible for someone to be a consistently profitable trader for the long term?
I believe that it’s possible. But not with the approach that so many forex traders have when it comes to the way they trade. If you stop and think about it, the statistics say that about 95% to 97% of forex traders lose money. And if you were to continue with the same approach that the majority of traders are using, I’d say that the probabilities are stacked against you, don’t you think?
When I first started trading, I thought it was all about finding a system that “suited” me in order for me to be profitable. But as I gained experience, I realized it wasn’t just about finding a system that matched my trading personality and compensated for my faults as a trader.
It’s also about finding out what really works, and then doing it.
There’s a saying that successful people do what the unsuccessful people don’t like to do. I’m saying that it’s also a very high probability that this same principle applies to the consistently profitable forex traders too.
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