unsuccessful stock trader can succeed in forex?

Hi guys,
I have mixed results in stocks. I'm very disciplined and I've all skills a trader should have. I like forex more then the stocks because of the clear trends and other reasons. I'm trading the forex with a demo account and I'm studying some strategies. If I do not do well on stocks, is it possible do well on forex?
I think yes..the most important thing is succeed on the demo and only after that period trade with real money

hmmm, interesting question.

all i can say is its possible, but anything is possible on the markets.

personally i went the other way, messed up my fx, learned some hard lessons about myself, then went to stocks, did pretty well, now i'm back in fx with some lessons learned. but fx is purely as a means of generating funding slowly and consistently, and then channeling them over to my equities for long term investment. so i might only take one or two trades a month.

ie i am still primarily a stock trader.

because personally i find equities to be easier, especially after forex.

perhaps the real question should be why you didnt do that well in stocks.

its a personal thing, different with every trader, but once youve learned that you can apply it to any market.
good luck mate.

sknk has it right.

"perhaps the real question should be why you didnt do that well in stocks."

I'm pretty sure that almost any problems you had with equities will transfer over to FX as well. But they wouldn't be insurmountable, with patience.

Not to be negative.

I've come from equities and do pretty well there, with the exception of low capitol and a need to use it up .

I don't beleive FX is any easier at all. There are aspects that are totally unexpected and that need to be prepared for.

With that patience, you will be able to be successful. So don't give up.

You will end up with some great help here.

But first things first...

The great minds available on this forum (not mine ) will need to know what happened to you with equities? What was going wrong?

thank you for the answers...I realizied that the problem is that I have my beliefes in trading but I can't build a good strategy with them. I hate trading systems because I don't trust the softwares...because of a little oversight you obtain wrong equities....In forex there are demo accounts,so I can test my beliefes. I think this is a period by wich most trader passed. You have your belifes, now you have to build a strategy

I need to know what you mean by this. Does it mean that you hate trading systems so you don't have one? If you don't have a trading system that you trade by, then you are probably taking shots in the dark when you trade with no rhyme or reason to execute the trade. You need a trading system to succeed along with the following holy grail of trading:

Discipline, Patience, Experience, and Money Management

I mean that I don'l like testing my strategies by using softwares..I have my rules but I prefer test it by myself in real time without softwares..I don't like programming so it is better don't do that because I'd do it bad..it's complicated for me

trading is trading, no matter what the market. there is a certain knowledge set that comes with each market and it's pretty easy to pick up by reading a book or something. but the essence of trading remains the same in every market.

I think I get what you mean.

The availability of practice/demo accounts is a fantastic part of the FX world.

Like you said...
You get to test your ideas out and see wether you have the technical skills or fundamental judgement abilities first, before you risk real money.

Maybe being able to "play" for a while on demo will help you get over whatever trading deficiancies you have. You get to improve that aspect first.

You say you are willing to practice for as long as it takes? That's a good start!

Just remember that going "live" later on , where you are risking real money, creates another hurdle psychologicaly.
But if, after practice, you have complete confidence in your method / strategy from this practicing, then you will find it easier to get over this obstacle then you would going in without it.

Hope this answers your question.

It depends. If the source of your stock market problems were the same as mine and had to do with short selling rules, bad fills, commissions, low margin and/or lack of trends, then I would say yes...you can do better at Forex.

If your problems had to do with other issues, it probably won't make any difference.

I would say get off the demo and open a micro mini if you can't learn on a few hundred bucks then it not for ya to begin with. Then once your ready you won't get mixed results like most going from a demo to a live account.

turbo

I couldn't agree more, I think a demo is great for learning the ropes, but now with all the micro mini places you can go(I recommend Oanda you can trade 1 unit!). It is so much better than a demo account for as cheap as you want. Just making it some denomonation of real money changes things very fast from a demo and your learning process should speed up.

Best of Luck

Mike

I don't know that I agree with the others entirely in that Forex is a much tougher game. I think it's a much different game. My trading experience with equities involved options. I also bought plain stocks, but that was investing and not trading... two entirely different animals. I did so-so in the options market. My first 4-5 trades were recommendations from the "industry leader in options software". Not only were all of them complete utter and total busts, only one of them even was in the green for any period of time, and they also turned out to be quite literally the worst trades you could have possibly taken. One of the stocks it had me buy a put on (the equivalant of going short), the stock rose so hard that it limited up. It literally reached its cap and couldn't go any higher.

Anyways, using discretionary trading tactics on the ETFs I did OK. I made money, but even remotely close to what I can make here. The reason I got out of the equities game is that was like dealing with a teenage girl. If overreationary is even a word, that is what I felt like in dealing with the stock market. Every single day the felt like Chicken Little was leading around a pack of lemmings and they were always finding something to stage a short term rally on, or short term decline on.

Oh! There's trouble in the middle east, let's panic and sell off.
Oh! There's new talks in the middle east, let's celebrate and rally.
Oh! Oil prices are rising, let's panic and sell off.
Oh! There's a truce in the middle east, let's celebrate and rally.
Oh! The FED is going to talk about interest rates in a month, let's be so scared for our lives that we don't trade anything.
Oh! They didn't raise them, oh joy, let's not do anything.


It literally felt like this every single day. Mind you I wasn't day trading, but I would still check my portfolio every day. It got to the point where I felt like I wasn't trading based on the fundamental valuation of a company, but rather I was trading the news on a daily basis and that was the only thing that mattered in the stock market.

I switched to Forex and yes I do think it can be considered by some to be a harder game, but it fits my personality orders of magnitude better than the stock market, and as such I've already banked more money less than half a year of Forex than I did in my whole equities trading career (not that it says that much). I guess you can compare it to going to school. There might be a 100 or 200 level class that's supposed to be easy, but for one reason or another it either doesn't interest you, or you just can't understand it. You then get to an upper level class that, even though it's harder, fascinates you, and it just 'clicks'. You'll probably do a heck of a lot better in that class than in the lower level ones (I know I did).

Anyways, that's just my two pips. Your milage may very.

For my money the two biggest differences between the Forex and the Stock market are the size of the markets themselves and the apparent ease with which a particular stock can be manipulated by unscrupulous people. The currency market is just too big to control by one individual or group and I doubt that you'll ever see a headline titled "US/British government caught cooking the books as the currency plummets!" In that regard it's a much more steady m arket with semi-predictable volatility, and you don't have to search for a buyer/seller to get in or out of your trade.


just my $.02

i completely agree with Loki.

what works for each individual differs from person to person, which is what makes this business such an expressive one below the surface.

the reasons that Loki got out of equities are the same reasons i love equities, and i'm sure that my fears of forex are what Loki loves about it.

thats the thing, its not about bending your head around one market/system/crystal ball/etc until it works,....

its about understanding yourself from an objective point of view, and finding which market suits your mental frame of mind.

otherwise you become a bad painter blaming all his brushes for his crappy work, when you might actually be a pretty damn good singer in the closet.

thanks everybody for the good answers...I need a demo testing period...I prefer to spend my time and affords with forex because of the useful demo accounts and overall because I love it. I decided to specialize in forex