How To Be A Professional Currency Trader
So what is a professional currency trader and how do you get to be one if you are just trading currency part time right now? This is the big question for most forex traders because just about everyone who is involved in the forex market has the dream of being able to support themselves and their families from their trading some day.
A professional currency trader could also be described as a full time forex trader but the words ‘full time’ give the impression of working 9 to 5 which is not really what it is all about. The point is to become financially free and enjoy what you do at the same time. If you continue trading consistently and successfully, you could go on to become rich.
There are two things that you need if you want to turn professional with currency trading.
1. A Simple But Profitable System
Successful traders don’t hop from one strategy to another. They develop a successful system, often by tweaking an existing system that they got from somebody else, and then they stick with it.
Usually this is a surprisingly simple system. It’s not something complex that requires insider knowledge of the financial markets or a genius mind for math. It’s the kind of system that you are probably applying right now.
The difference is that they know from experience that their system is profitable so they can apply it all of the time in a disciplined way. They trade when the signals are right and not when they are not. There may be a month when they make no money. That’s OK. They don’t panic. They know it will even out in the long term.
2. Money
It takes money to make money. The old cliche is just as true in forex trading as in any other type of investment. If you have a mini trading account with $1000 in it, you are not going to be able to turn professional tomorrow. It just is not possible to make enough money to live on from $1000 capital because that would mean turning a 300% to 500% profit a month. Get real.
What you can do, of course, is slowly build up your capital. If you can make 10% or even a conservative 5% growth per month, then you can get there in a few years. 10% growth per month, consistently for 4 years, gets you up close to the $100,000 mark where real money is made. Until that time of course you cannot withdraw any of your funds so you must have another source of income.
If your system gives you 5% growth it will take you twice as long but you are probably less likely to crash and burn in the process. However, if you start with $10,000 you can do it in half the time.
Remember to keep a low risk per trade: don’t take big risks to try to make more money. The really big traders keep their risk down to around 1% of funds or even less. When you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in your account, you want to make darn sure you don’t lose it all.
And that, in fact, is probably the biggest secret to becoming a professional currency trader: protect your capital.
