I get questions from traders all of the time about going pro – becoming a professional forex trader. Many traders wonder if they are “ready” to go pro. I believe that three things must be in place for the pro trader, once you have all three you should do well. But if one or two of the three elements are missing, it will be very tough to make it in the long run. I try to encourage traders to be the best they can be, but it is critical, in my opinion, to have these three elements in place before you make the jump:
1. Confidence in your trading system(s)
Once you have a trading system that you love, that you have tested extensively, that you have used in live trading and have consistently made money with, you should be confident enough to trade for a living. You may also be a boring trader, simply because you know your system so well that trading is no longer exciting to you.
2. A Complete Understanding of Money Management
With a complete understanding of money management you know how much money you will expect to make. Every trader should be comfortable enough with money management principles to project profits. Will you make what you project? Obviously, you probably will not. You may make more money some months and less money other months, but overall your projections should be very close to your overall profits. If not, then you probably need to work more on understanding money management.
3. Enough Money to Make a Living
Sadly, this is often the one thing that many traders are lacking. Many traders have a viable, consistently profitable system. Some of these same traders also understand money management, but they do not have enough money to trade for a living. This may be because money was spent on learning how to trade forex profitably. Many traders end up spending “tuition money” on the first few accounts, making mistakes along the way and big chunks of money (I certainly did that for a few years).
What if you had some money to trade, money that was not yours? What if you could join a group of traders trading for a forex fund, and share in the profits? If this sounds interesting to you, you might be interested in the FXjake Pro Trader Webinar Series