Thousands of part-time traders dream of trading for a living every day. They dream of it when they face the endless traffic queues in the morning. They dream of it when they open the office door and face the pile of files on their desks every morning. They dream of it when they sit staring out of their office windows at the people on the street....
It doesn't have to stay a dream forever. There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind before you will ever be a successful full-time trader though.
To be successful as a full-time trader you have to understand something: that you are not really trading against the market. Neither are you trading against other traders. You are trading against yourself. The way you trade is heavily influenced by your approach to risk taking - and that will in turn determine your success or failure as a trader.
You can do all the trading courses, read all the manuals and have all the latest software, but if you are unable to control yourself, the market will control you. If you tend to stay in losing trades forever, hoping they will eventually around, you will never become a successful trader.
Likewise, if you don't have the discipline to leave a winning trade alone and "let it ride", if you sell it the moment it becomes profitable, this weakness will eventually destroy your trading career. If you do this every single time: hang on to a losing trade and sell a winning trade before it matures, you will end up with a string of large losses and a couple of small wins. And you will make a net loss - guaranteed.
You also have to decide which type of trader you want to become. Do you want to do day trading, swing trading or longer term trading. New traders always find day trading alluring. They are attracted by the idea of making quick money. And by the adrenalin of making profits and losses sometimes within the course of a few minutes. The fact is, however, that the market is much more unpredictable over the short term than the longer term.
You also need to make a decision about the market instruments you want to trade in: currencies, shares or commodities. Each one of the above require a slightly different approach and different skills and tools. Share trading necessitates that you get familiar with the companies involved. Study their financial statements and their competitors. With commodity trading and currency trading you need to get familiar with the factors that influence the prices of that commodity or currency.
The right tools are of course very important as well. To start off with you need knowledge. You need to get familiar with reading financial statements and analysing charts. You need to understand technical indicators, how to use them and how to interpret movements in these indicators
Furthermore you need to register with a company that will provide you with the latest prices for the instruments you want to trade in. Many free services provide delayed prices - which is good enough if you trade in a longer time frame. If you want to get involved in day trading, you absolutely have to make sure you get live prices though.
Trading for a living therefore does not have to remain a dream forever. Start with yourself. Get the necessary training, then learn to control yourself. Finally get the right tools and you are all set to become a successful full-time trader.
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