Can anyone become a trader?

I can't agree more to everything you've outlined here.

You obviously have more experience than I do. I am in the process of realising the importance of method in trading. But sometimes you need someone else to tell you what is right and what is wrong.

you hit the nail on the head !
absolutely !

Can anyone trade Forex? My answer is NO. Like any other activity you pursue, there are certain qualities or characteristics that are required to be successful in Forex. One of them is developing the love for Forex trade itself. If you don't enjoy trading, chances are you won't succeed. Seriousness is also needed to trade Forex. You cannot expect to be effective and successful in Forex unless you take it seriously. Forex business is money business, so have to be a wise money manager if you must succeed. Finally, Patience they say is a virtue. If you must trade, you must cultivate it. Forex is risky like any other business, but if you have patience, things that are difficult become easy. If you master patience, every other thing in Forex is mastered.

Theoretically anyone can become profitable trader.
But from a practical perspective, absolutely not!
And there are many many solid reasons for this.
First and most important - the majority of people do not have the time!
Professional trading is a highly specialized job and and like any other highly specialized job it takes years to learn. In my opinion(and experiance) it takes at least 2 - 3 years of daily learning and practice in order to become consistently profitable(just above breakeven). But to really master this game to the point where you can trade for a living and to be able to make serious cash on a regular basis - you need at least 5-7 years of solid practice.
Most people do not have this time. They are too bussy with their regular jobs.
Trading takes a lot of time, energy and concentration.
This is one of the reasons why it is much harder for people with regular jobs to become profitable traders.

Second and also very important reason - the financial trading/speculation is not for every one! Most people do not have the necessary qualities. And for the most part have no real desire to acquire these qualities by learning and practice. The whole process seems too hard and boring.

Patience is one of the hardest things to master. How many people can stare at screens for hours and hours every day without actualy doing anything? Not many!
Most people get bored too quickly.
But this is exactly what is nessary in trading. The ability to wait for the right opportunity. To wait as long as you have to. And while you are waiting, you have to be focused 100% on the market.
Waiting with patience! This doesn't mean watching youtube, reading BS articles, checking your email, listening to music, playing on your smart phone, or even browsing the forum at forexfactory.com! No no no.....

If you want to win this game - focus 100% on the game and eliminate all external distractions. Period.
How many people can do that?
Can you do that?
Can you watch the market price for at least 3 hours straight and do nothing else?
Can you do that, and at the same time when you finaly see the right opportunity, you have to execute your trade immediately at the spot without a single bit of hesitation! And then you have to manage the trade correctly according to your rules and frame work. And then regardles of the outcome of the trade, to be able to stand ready at 100% capacity to take advantage of the next opportunity. (no emotions).

And every time you open a trade - you put your hard earned cash on the line. You are at the mercy of the market, but trusting yourself, and knowing that you can make it. You can beat the market. You are better then 99% of all traders in the intire wide world.
And you have to do this every day of every week and every week of every month and every month of every year....year after year.......and never give up no matter what.
HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN DO THAT? I bet you already know the answer......
The real question is - are YOU one of these people?

Doesn't have to take that much time - your post reads to me more like the time to be a good trader of short time frames. Someone with less time can set orders and limits and only take about 5 minutes a day and be consistently profitable - just means trading longer time frames.
Can anyone do it? No - traits others have mentioned such as discipline, patience, intelligence can determine how successful or unsuccessful you can be.

No Effort No Gain.

i think we can learn a lot through quote from Paul Tudor Jones about trading.

Of course, everyone can do trading and could be a trader. Forex trading that apply to everyone and not limited to certain circles. Therefore everyone can be a trader, provided we can do a practice trading with both improving trading skills so they can get a higher profit and is expected to be consistent.

Hi, mate

Do you still actually believe than 95% of traders are losers? That's the biggest lie I've ever known. I've checked out many sites with systems, traders, proofs of trading and from what I've seen more than 30% of foreign exchange traders are profitable. But of course, it took them more than a few years to accomplish such thing.

I don't like to be brainwashed by such concept that does NOT exist.

Cheers.

Nice zen thinking and very true.
Anyone can become a trader but trading requires iron mental and emotional discipline.

All the best!

I was hit by a candle stick as a child, so I became a trader.

Seriously, both sort of. Theoretically everyone can but it's also unlikely for practical reasons. We all can learn skills but changing our traits is a lot harder. A friend of mine is very choleric. I refuse to let him drive the car because sitting next to a maniac in the London traffic hell scares the shit out of me, he is constantly swearing when driving. Can you imagine someone with those characteristics trading money? I seriously can't. Some people get depressed when they lose money. It may be non sense from a logical point of view but whether you're driven by your head or your gut feelings is probably not for you to decide.

In the end we all have things we can't or shouldn't do. I have an impaired sense of balance, working as a roofer might be a not so smart choice. My eyes are too bad for being a pilot, I'd probably miss the runway.

The skills are easy to learn. Trading really isn't rocket science but finding a system that works with your (probably) unchangeable or at least hard-changeable traits may be too complicated to achieve during your time span from starting to giving up.

Everybody can be a trader. But if you Judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree you will end up with a very unhappy fish.

Great Answer !
I only ad this one : How many people can handle the possibility of a black swan movement ?
You can be extremely profitable and then , all of a sudden , boom ! your trader platform freezes, and you have negative balance !

Someone once said (can't remember whom):
1. Start small
2. Think big
3. Grow fast

I agree with the first point, not so much with the other two. Trading is often a marathon, not a sprint. I think one shouldn't be too ambitious from the start.

so you've caught me on hump day... I call it hump day so I can drink till my liver wants to be my lung... then we call it a day and I go and try and have sex with something.

but here goes...

who can be a trader?

 

1. Someone who can embrace the shameless quality of losing. Someone who can come to see losing as a process of time quality and discovery. Embrace it and therefore look forward to losing again.

Why? because you don't learn anything by winning.. Winning ebraces the false notion of the ego's flawed beliefs, that you are special in some way and that you are good. You're not and you aren't. You believe your heroes are but they would be the first to admit that they are not and they arent

 

1. Someone who can separate from modern and current culture become an entity in themselves. Trading is not a business, in trading the Trader is the the business. You have no employees (probably) no inventory, no website (unless you're a scammer).. People say trading is a business... No the trader is the business . You are the the inventory you are the employee you are the entity

Why? Let's face it the world is trained and brainwashed to live a certain way... Wake up, go to work, earn your keep, come home to your family, eat, entertain, go to bed and wake up and do it all again... Trading goes against the grain of this "norm" and therefore will be very painful as you fight the cogs of the machine that has been put in place for you. If you don't hurt yourself your wife, your friends your kids will do that for you. The market never sleeps, fucks, eats, entertains. But somehow you still need to.. Good luck with that...

 

1. Someone who will never settle for anything but what is right A perfectionist, someone who can have a bad day after waking up good, look in the mirror and say "fk I'm a loser".. go to be get up and do it all again. Someone who can be suicidal to the point of motivation, not defeat.

Why? Because a realist is a trader, 95% settle for something else, they say "mercy" and sell shitty systems, or trade money management. They settle and if thhat is what works for them then nothing wrong with that. But I dont think anyone came here to settle. No you wanna know what it really takes...

 

1. Someone who likes to talk about ideas rather than other people.

Why? Because the former is a sure trait of someone addicted to instant gratification and the the settlement of a convenient reality. Someone who values the now over the future. A trader can only be someone who fights on for the delayed gratification of glory. The latter knows that none of this right now is relevant. That when the goal is reached now will be 100 times better and proceeds with this in mind.

 

1. Can look at their mother/ Spouse/ Friends in the eye and say "I love you but you're dead to me right now"...

Why? Sounds harsh but lets face it .. "No one" comes from their bedroom and makes it as a trader. They don't know anyone and you can't show them your best friend whose a wall street trader and showing you how to kill the numbers.. Only scammy ass OPM people or System sellers do that.. If you don't have the professional title as "Mr. Trader XXXX Bank" then you're a nobody, and the real world will never accept you as one (refer to point 1).

 

1. Be prepared to lose it all. Your life savings, your job,your friend, your time, your wife, your respect. A real trader here the call and follows it with an "all in" attitude". they aren't on the forums asking others how to do it, or if it can be done. This is it for them and they do it. On top of all of this bravado they rarely make it. Hypnotized by the flashy lights and the shale promises of system sellers, ego vampires, brokers, and commercial operators they walk like lemmings with all the traits. Determination, Patience, Discipline, Capital, Dreams, Intelligence, Motivation... Whatever that is just an entry ticket to lose money.

1. Honesty... Honest with yourself, Know when you suck, when you've deluded yourself, when you've followed an idiot,when an idiot is lying to you even though he doesn't know it, when it's time to droop back to demo, when it's time to go live, when you've learned something painful but new about yourself.

could write another 50 points no worries.. but I gotta go



So in summary who can get to the end of this rocky road? To come from your bedroom and succeed in the world wide markets. VEry very few. Personally I thought I had it made until a real guy cam along and showed me how inaccurate I was and how accurate and fair the market actually is. Don't get me wrong he put it in my face for 2 years straight; everyday, every session and I still couldn't see it.. just bits here and there. This guy knew his stuff and has been around the traps he told me he'd never seen a real guy that had been at this less than 10 years. He showed me game I never even knew existed after 5 years of dedicated trading, full time with over time. So this is why I get a bit knaky when I see some idiot with a rd fag on his name posting crap. The crap is much more appealing than the actual truth and whoosh there's your retail trading market and traders..

That is true, with those three things we will be able to achieve success in forex trading. We will have a continuous trading to improve trading skills that we have so that way we can trade well and can earn a maximum profit.

yeah sweet, that's all you need,

/actually im just gonna say it..

the new culture is this: (and I'm not looking at you smartphone uses), I know your phones are really smart and great and stuff but

lets be really fkn ridiculously stupid, uniform, uncreative, uninnovative and lame all at the same time.... and everyone else will accept us and that is what is so great about us. And that is what really counts...

I notice you don't post much on threads and I see why now. You have excellent, realistic, truthful posts (this one included) that helps almost anyone in the world, not just currency traders, but even though I can't fully agree on how you mentioned the markets are not a business. Problem is, retail traders are over-confident, greedy, under-capitalized AND over-leveraged with no experience on how the markets work, no wonder they loose all their shirts when they're trading from their bedroom (as you mentioned) looking for another ''ECN'' label that think such thing exist in Retail Forex.

Do you honestly think those huge banks will place your 0.1 lot orders and $1000 capital into the market? What do you expect? To move the market and get less commission?

We're just fooling ourselves.

Anyway, I'd definitely show this post to every trader I know because have I ever seen something like this... lol