Currency Trading: is it a viable long term way to make money from home?

Question

I went to an introduction to FOREX (foreign exchange) class recently and they were telling us how with a good education in FOREX you can consistently make money, and good money too, since you are trading 50 or 100 times what you have in your trading account. The complete course is $2000 and they were pushy for us to take the class so I didn't feel so confident about it, but i read up on the subject a bit and did a trial trade for about 30 days, I was up a lot at one point (about $8000) but in the end of the month i pretty muich broke even. WIth more knowledge and a proper education on the subject can it be a long term way of makin money?

DEAR ALL, thanks for your responses, overall you seem to think currency trading is high risk and not really a viable way of making money from home. I should have mentioned in my question that if i were to do it, i would want to rely more on technical analysis and all the ratios and different theorems etc. I would also be making trades that are from about 30 minutes to at most one day. Does this change anyones opinion on the subject?

Answer 1

The Forex market is full of scammers and people who sell questionable products than make them rich and not you. I would advise against Forex trading. You are likely to lose your money. Forex is useful to companies that make money in one country and need to exchange it for money in another country, but most individuals who trade Forex lose money. Read the links:

These trial trade programs do not always properly simulate the market. I would not trust them.

Answer 2

I've only been trading the FOREX a few months, and have been doing rather well. I've traded stocks, stock index futures, and options for about 15 years, but got tired of the meaningless volatility with no direction.

The Forex is much simpler than the stock market, and easier to track. There are only six major currency pairs: Euro, British Pound, Swissy, Australian Dollar, Canadian Dollar, and the Yen. With the six major currencies, you will never have liquidity problems, and the spreads are good to reasonable (Currencies are always traded in pairs - EUR/USD, USD/CAD, etc.). And liquidity, well, the stock market trades several hundred million dollars a day, but the Forex trades several trillion dollars a day. Some invividual or institution with a few billion dollars is not going to come in and push this market.

You can certainly trade the Chinese Yuan against the Algerian dinar, but the spread is going to be huge, the currency manipulated, and it might take a long time to move. And the liquidity will be horrible, so you can't use market orders and you won't get your price.

Like most of you, I thought you had to know a lot about the fundamentals of each of the foreign countries, and there are so many countries. But I've just reduced this list down to six majors, and the activities of these six are well known. Like the U.S., they each publish a CPI, and GDP, and Unemployment Rates, and are regularly updating the markets on the biggest influence: interest rates. I've always prided myself as a pure Technical Analyst. Fundamentals are for geeks and goobers; only price matters. But if you're going to trade the Forex, you better pay attention to these reports.

The currencies trend better than any other investment vehicle, and much better than the constant whipsaws in the stock market., so many systems work here that will not work elsewhere. If you can trade the stock market, you can trade the Forex.

With any leveraged position, you must use stops. Good money management is essential here. The gamblers will blow out twice as fast here. More leverage is always more risky, but you do not have to use maximum leverage. You can trade one contract with only $1,000 in a standard account for maximum leverage, or you can trade one contract for every $10,000 you have in the account, or one for every $100,00 you have in the account, and do away with the leverage altogether.

I got so frustrated with the stock market going a different direction almost every day, until you anticipated it, then it changed. It was turning us all into Day Traders. With the Forex, the trend really is your friend.

Like any trading occupation, it requires good data and good charting and analysis software, and you need a good news source on Forex. The only platform that offers all of these, that I'm aware of, is called PremiereTrade. They also offer good training and instruction and message boards that works well for seeing it in action and getting your questions answered.

Check it out.

Answer 3

I am interested in currency trading, as well. I took an online selfpaced course at a similar cost to yours. I have been day trading only and recently invested in companies located in Brazilian and Isreal. I sold Tefron stock 4-5 weeks ago when I heard news of the Isreal-Palestinian ceasefire. Internaitional economics and politics play an enormous role in currency trades. I sold ITU when I read of corruption in the Brazilian government banking system. However, many analysts are recommending Brazil, Canada, and Australia are good investments. I'd like to hear directly from someone who is making money in currency trading and exactly how it works -step by step.

Answer 4

Forex trading is really a gamble. Theres so many factors to consider when trading in currency...eg: political conditions of a country are a major factor in determining the strength of a currency.

Unfortunately too many people are just trying to make a quick buck with Forex trading. You must remember that world markets are very volatile at this moment in time with regards to the N.Korean nuclear situation. Do you understand that if you were reading an online news bulletin and the headline read "North Korean nuclear situation", it is far less alarming than "North Korean Nuclear Crisis"...stuff like this could determine Forex changes.

Answer 5

A good question,and could be debated and argued in many different ways. It didn't help that Maggie Thatcher closed down many of our industries to be replaced by mainly white collar jobs, these are now being touted off around the world to cut costs, so british workers lose out twofold. With no hint of refusing the flow of migrant workers,surely it makes sense to at least limit numbers in the participating European countries as demand deminishes in particular ones like here,thereby spreading employment more equally around across europe. It doesn't help that there is an earn for nothing culture in this country,this is instilled from a young age in many families that housing and benefits are a right and not means to an end;i.e finding employment eventually. I have been self employed for many years but am also feeling the pinch with this credit crunch (micro recession),am looking around for alternative work if things eventually go belly up and in final answer to your question - Yes, its very difficult ! So at this time unless the government gets off there backsides to really help there is no solutions at the moment.

Answer 6

If you want to earn money with binary trading and you aren't a big expert you definitely need some kind of support. I use a software called "autobinary signals" and I earning good money with it. Here you can find all the details and also some video proofs: http://tradingsignal.toptips.org

Answer 7

the best trading software http://tradingsolution.info
i have attended a lot of seminars, read counless books on forex trading and it all cost me thousands of dollars. the worst thing was i blew up my first account. after that i opened another account and the same thing happened again. i started to wonder why i couldn,t make any money in forex trading. at first i thought i knew everything about trading. finally i found that the main problem i have was i did not have the right mental in trading. as we know that psychology has great impact on our trading result. apart from psychology issue, there is another problem that we have to address. they are money management, market analysis, and entry/exit rules. to me money management is important in trading. i opened another account and start to trade profitably after i learnt from my past mistake. i don't trade emotionally anymore.
if you are serious about trading you need to address your weakness and try to fix it. no forex guru can make you Professional trader unless you want to learn from your mistake.

Answer 8

Television is produced to the cheapest common denominator - i.e., the average IQ of everyone, whereas a book is written to the best common denominator

Answer 9

Another approach might be to trade the new ETFs which track foreign currencies. Symbols are FXA, FXB, FXC, FXF, FXS, FXM.

Answer 10

Yes.

If you have less than $1,000,000.00 USD I suggest you to stay away from FOREX.

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