Why "just" trading forex is a mistake

Many people start their trading journey in this market for obvious reasons: high leverage, low starting money, open 24/5, low manipulation due to the high liquidity,...

In my opinion this is exactly the problem for most. They start with just a couple of bucks and wanna build that up into some serious money in a short period of time. So, they start with every system they can find, preferably intraday systems with flashy indicators, cause otherwise it wouldn't even make sense to trade cause of the small profits. Macroeconomic fundamentals are totally ignored cause on such a small time-scale the impact of some news reports are difficult to predict and to analyze. There is also a lack of choice, cause so many pairs are correlated giving you only a handful of opportunities. In the end accounts are blown one after the other.

So, we got a lack of choice, ignorance of fundies and trying to daytrade the crap out of the market leading to account depletion over time. We got now several options: we either find a positive expectancy price model (from my experience quite hard to find), we give up the journey, we try to go longer-term incorporating fundamentals (which will probably not give the profits desired, since real opportunities are not there every day), or we finally start taking wealth management seriously and open ourselves up to other asset classes.

And I think the last point is actually where the journy should ultimately go. Of course the last option is also the hardest and most time consuming, cause it means that you finally have to get off your lazy ass and start reading company reports, doing research on demand of coffee,... But then the opportunities are endless, once you can trade all kinds of world or company events. There are so many opportunities out there when incorporating stocks, futures, bonds or even real estate. Then you can really make some informed decisions which are not only based on price, but also on reality/fundies and just wait for the best opportunities to flourish. And you finally have choices, which I find the most compelling argument. You are no longer forced to just trade 6 currencies and you can also enjoy the comfort of trading medium to longterm.

Of course when you start trading so many asset classes it requires you to start with more than the usual 500 bucks, but I think the journey is in the end much more rewarding than just sticking to forex.

Isn't forex the safest? Sure it's hard to learn, but lets say you trade a stock a single bad news story can pretty much cause price to gap straight over your SL and give you a much bigger loss then you anticipated.

Due to the size of forex such moves are often a tiny fraction of the actual cross and as such only overleveraged accounts on the <1hr timeframes could get seriously screwed. Stocks losing 20% of their value in one day is very possible, and especially in the current climate and the problems with shorting stocks that means stocks have the odds stacked against you as opposed to with you in the boom of the 1990s (every broker I have searched for has really stupid and annoying limitations on shorts making them only rarely viable).

Obviously you need a portfolio, so that such events when price gaps through doesn't hurt you that much, but that is just common sense. And of course one has to consider the economic climate and how it affects the sector and not mindlessly buying into stocks. But when you do enough research you can always find nuggets that defy general conditions. Not sure if forex is the safest, safe in what sense? You can lose or win just as in any other asset class. My point is, that if you incorporate other asset classes you have much more options and can really limit yourself to just the best opportunities out there. If I only have 6 currencies to trade, then real opportunities won't show up very often and I have to take substandard setups. => not good in my book.

Yeah, but why would anyone want to run all over the place like a chicken with their head cut off, when they can study one market, one currency pair and be familiar with it all the way around. I think it would be better for one to specialize in one thing, and once you master it, then move on to another. Just my opinion, but im sure there are people who can focus on many different instruments at once.

that was not the topic. Where did I say that anybody should learn everything at once? I just said the end of the journey should be a well balanced portfolio of different asset classes. god, maybe it was a mistake to open that thread in the rookie section. sorry for having wasted your time.

You shouldn't take it the wrong way, and i apologize if i went off topic. And yes, i agree that a well balanced portfolio is a good thing to have, all im saying is, for the traders without the money to build a well rounded portfolio maybe focus/specialize in one area, and once you build up some assets/money, then you can spread it out a bit. Thats all. Not trying to offend you or anyone else.