Can u make money in forex

5 Harsh Realities of Making Money in Forex.

Are you sick and tired of self-proclaimed trading experts (internet marketers) telling you how easy it is to make money from Forex?

You know that Forex is not easy.

The problem is that most sites wont tell you how hard Forex can be. In fact most sites say Forex is easy. Most Forex websites do not tell you the truth about Forex.

Harsh Reality 1: Forex is Never Quick and Easy.

Most new traders think Forex will be easy.

They see advertisements promising quick and automated riches with a Forex robot or something equally irresistible. They dive right in blind to the dangers and they get hurt.

In fact anybody who tells you Forex is easy is lying. Check out this ad below:

Would you buy this product?

You could be a lawyer in 30 days, you could work for a prestigious law firm earning a six figure income.

You would not buy the product because you know its a lie. Getting a law degree requires half a decade of study. There is no way you can become a master lawyer in under a month.

Forex might not be as hard as law but the same concept holds true. No product is going to make you a master trader in a few weeks. No EA (Forex robot) is going to make you consistent profits while you sleep. Forex just isn’t that easy!

If you are here for easy riches, got to a casino, you will have better chances there!

Harsh Reality 2: Most Systems are Useless.

Most traders waste time searching for the perfect trading system.

When looking for a system the first stop is usually popular Forex forums. If you see a system with great feedback and many users it must work right?

Most trading systems on popular Forex forums are created by inexperienced traders. The systems may work well for a few weeks, or even for a few months, but they fail in the long run.

This is especially true of indicator based systems. Indicators are sensitive to changes in market conditions. Some indicator based systems give amazing signals in trending markets but fail in ranging markets. The problem is that most indicator based systems are not adaptable to changing market conditions. So a system that works this week might not work next week. If a trading system has not been forward tested for over a year you cannot trust its effectiveness.

If you go down the path of hunting for Forex systems you have already failed. You will embark on a long, fruitless search and find nothing.

My advice is to start with the basics, learn how to read price action and how to place Support and Resistance areas. Once you learn those two things you will not need to find a trading system.

Harsh Reality 3: Demo Trading Won’t Prepare You For Live Trading.

Imagine a mean looking, tattooed biker approaches you. He pulls out a shotgun, points it at your chest and demands your wallet. What would you do? Chances are you would probably hand over your wallet pretty quickly.

Now imagine an scrawny little eight year old kid approaches you. He pulls out a water pistol, points it at you and asks for your wallet. What would you do? You would probably laugh.

This may sound absurd but there is a correlation. When you trade a demo account you are not using real money. So the fear and apprehension of risking real money does not impact your performance.

A demo account is like the little kid above, it is play money, you can laugh it off and move on.

A real account is like the biker above, the fear and the intimidation of trading real money impacts your actions.

Psychological factors may seem insignificant but they are very significant. Most new traders perform extremely well on demo accounts but fail abysmally on live accounts. Psychology matters and demo accounts do not prepare you for real trading.

Demo accounts do have their use. They are great for familiarizing yourself with a trading platform and learning basic trading concepts. They are also good for basic testing of a trading system.

Harsh Reality 4: You Need Time.

So many websites tell you that you can trade Forex successfully with less than one hour of work per week.

The reality is that you need to invest a lot of time into becoming a profitable trader. If you can only find a few hours each week to dedicate to Forex you should probably give up.

Learning to become a consistently profitable trader takes a lot of time. You need to be prepared to set aside several hours a week to study Forex. According to scientists it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something. I doubt you need 10,000 hours to become a profitable trader. However, you will need more than two hours per week.

The good news is that once you are profitable it is possible to cut your trading time down to a few hours per week. Currently I trade around two hours per day four days a week.

Harsh Reality 5: Adapt or Die.

The Forex market is constantly changing. You need to be able to adapt or you will never make it.

With a constantly changing market a trader need to be able to make changes on the fly and adapt to current situations. So, a good trade knows how to adapt quickly to a changing market.

When the market throws something unexpected at you, you need to be able to analyse the best course of action and make a decision quickly.

My trading method is based on price action. Right now I concentrate almost exclusively on reversal trading. This is because since 2010 the average daily range of Forex pairs has dropped. GBP/JPY used to range 280 pips per day and know it ranges 120 pips.

When markets are not ranging breakout trading becomes hard. My trading method was adapted from trading breakouts to trading reversals in 2010. When pairs start to range again I will probably adapt to market conditions and begin to trade breakouts.

A good trader needs to be ready to adapt quickly to changing markets.

So, Should You Bother Trading Forex?

Well, that is up to you. We all know that the vast majority of new traders fail. They fail because they expect no stress, fast and easy riches.

You cannot change the harsh realities above. However, you can accept them and get on with it anyway.

Trading is tough but you need to be tougher. You need to work hard and you need to persevere.

Will it be hard? yes.

Can you make it a little easier? yes…….

The Next Step.

The reason I first started forex4noobs was to help new traders become professional traders. That is why this site is packed with stuff to help you along the road from beginner to pro. So if you want to get on the right path take a look around the site.

If you are completely new to Forex you should start with or basic Forex education section.

If you know the basics you should check out our free Forex course. In the video course I show you many important things you wont learn anywhere else. I show you how to put together a highly effective trading plan, money management plan and trading diary. I even explain how to put together a trading strategy.

For free analysis and trade ideas check in to this blog regularly.

Finally if you want a proven trading strategy along with a private members forum where we discuss trades check out the advanced Forex Price Action course. It is closed to new members right now but if you throw your in I will contact you in the next few weeks about getting access.

Leave a Reply.

40 Responses to “5 Harsh Realities of Making Money in Forex”

That is really a great info….and the misconception about Forex fool many beginner taht the learn the hard way…

Unfortunately when people learn the hard way they often decide to quit. That is the point of this post I want to make some things clear to new traders from the start so they do not go down the wrong path.

Thanks for the comment.

Hey Nick. I needed to compliment you on this. I marked up my Euro chart earlier this week with the support and resistance zones which you had layed out in your . Like a magnet, price bounced high and low on these zones all week. Your analysis was spot on! Well done!

Glenn glad you have started using Support and Resistance. Thanks for the comment!

Thanks Nick. I really appreciate what you make available each week to the forex trading world. It is wise, sensible and no nonsense advice. I have tried most of what you have mentioned in the above article and it doesn’t work. no quick road to riches. Work, educate, discipline and time are vital. I hope one day I do make it :-) Thanks again.

Hope you do to man. You are on step ahead of most if you realise and accept that hard work, discipline and time are vital.

Nick, thank you very much for the advice! Sometimes, we need that, despite of the lots of bogus ads we see on the web!

Thanks Nick, I can perceive great experience and truth in your thoughts. After the “fruitless search /nothing found” phase I’m ready for back to basics. Like your forex4noobs very much and your method too. Hope to enter the advanced price action corse soon.

Thanks Nordy. Back to basics is good, once you learn basic Price Action you will see the market in a different light.

Thanks Nick, I appreciate.

Thanks for commenting Aui.

Amazing article Nick. I agree about demo accounts they do not Help!

I think demo accounts most certainly CAN help. A demo account is a necessity for a new trading system you are trying out. You need to practice that new trading system on demo first to see if it works. After you are confident it works, then the next logical step is to trade a live account. Obviously the best thing to do at that point is to trade with a small amount of money (such as a micro acccount) and work your way up to larger amounts of money to trade.

My point is, I do not agree at all if anyone says a demo account is useless (for the very reason I’ve just mentioned).

Topgun, I am not sure if this comment is intended solely for Max or for me too. However, I did say in the post that demos are useful for testing a system.

“Demo accounts do have their uses. They are great for familiarizing yourself with a trading platform and learning basic trading concepts. They are also good for basic testing of a trading system.”

Good article the lawyer picture is funny.

Haha it was fun making it. Thanks for the comment man.

Adapt or die is perfect for any business not just Forex. The problem is that nobody teaches us how to adapt or when!

Take a look at the Free Forex Course. In one of the lessons I explain how to adapt to changing markets.

Love the lawyer kit! But I’m holding out for the neurosurgeon kit. I hear that one only takes 14 days.

Thanks for all the posts Nick. Much appreciated!

This is clear and realistic advice which gives an accurate perspective of forex trading. Anyone who is serious about becoming a trader should be prepared to put in the time to study and not expect forex to be like the proverbial goose that laid a solid gold egg!

As for “Adapt or Die” – the ability to analyse price action delivers the ability to adapt.

Hey Nick.. Post me your gmail id… I would like to contact you…

I am new to trading, I am learning from my nephew who has been trading since 2008, I found your site 2 days ago it is very enlightening and full of information that is much more interesting and easy to use i love your format for setting up your charts its plain ans simple looks very easy to use although i havent quite used it yet because of to weekend but i will be using this strategy for myself. Do you have the support and resistant areas for the eur nzd? I am so very happy to have found this site and thank you so much for your knowledge, assistant and your time for putting all this together.

I would like to check out your advanced course.

Thanks Nick, I want to join your group.

I am currently a court interpreter for the Superior Courts of California. Sadly, over the next few months I will be losing my leg to bone cancer.

I am slowly leaving the courts and doing only private matters. I need to look for a new source of income within my upcoming limitations and would like to know if you and your program could assist me in this endeavour.

I like what you said is all I now lost, until dry.

Great advice to newbs dude. Focusing on fundamentals is key in forex, (no offense technicians) as it is with any form of investing, although technical indicators are useful also, (MACD, and CBOE VIX) As you stated, you can make money in forex with time and dedication. I failed three times before my fourth turn, and I have to constantly adapt to data/news releases and market sentiment. So many factors effect price movement and new traders try to trade 3-6 currency pairings. Glad to see that others out here are trying to help people.

I have actually researched the website to know if any one has made it through forex not only was my finding discouraging but intimidating. I lost my job few months ago and I decide not to look for job again but to learn and settle down trading forex but could not make head way with demo nor understood the jagons in MT 4 platform.

My question Is this CAN I MASTER AND MAKE MONEY FROM FOREX? CAN I TRADE FULL TIME ON FOREX TO MAKE AT LEADT $200: a month? Please reply.

Hey Nick can I trade in south Africa?

I do not see why not.

I really enjoyed this article, but I have to respectfully disagree that demo accounts will not help traders with their real accounts. I agree that there is a LARGE portion of success in trading which is attributed trade psychology, but I expect that every trader learning to trade should use their demo account for practicing technique in real time, and managing “real” trades – which should in turn should help with comfort and confidence in trading real money (or at least it did with me). Back testing can only help so much, but real-time trading with “monopoly money” certainly helped me with knowing how to do things in real-time.

Thanks for the info, Nick! Keep up the awesome work!

easiest way to make money in forex with your help.

Some help with trading plan.

Hi I have been trading forex for a while some times i win most of the times i loose. I am into price action, but still something is wrong.

What is your win to loss ratio?

I have never traded before and I am interested in learning how to trade the forex mkts. with some degree of knowing what the “hell” I am doing. I do know a little bit of the basics but I am sure not quite enough. I need to also learn how to move around the trading platform in order to be able to even place a trade, when to open and close a trade, etc.

Can you folks actually teach a complete “newbie” such as I?

Feel free to respond to my e-mail with suggestions.

10 Ways To Avoid Losing Money In Forex.

The global forex market boasts over $4 trillion in average daily trading volume, making it the largest financial market in the world. Forex's popularity entices traders of all levels, from greenhorns just learning about the financial markets to well-seasoned professionals. Because it is so easy to trade forex - with round-the-clock sessions, access to significant leverage and relatively low costs - it is also very easy to lose money trading forex. This article will take a look at 10 ways that traders can avoid losing money in the competitive forex market. (There are no specifically forex focused programs, but there are still some advanced education alternatives for forex traders. Check out 5 Forex Designations .)

1. Do Your Homework – Learn Before You Burn.

2. Take the Time to Find a Reputable Broker.

Traders should also research each broker's account offerings, including leverage amounts, commissions and spreads, initial deposits, and account funding and withdrawal policies. A helpful customer service representative should have all this information and be able to answer any questions regarding the firm's services and policies. (Discover the best ways to find a broker who will help you succeed in the forex market. Refer to 5 Tips For Selecting A Forex Broker .)

Nearly all trading platforms come with a practice account, sometimes called a simulated account or demo account. These accounts allow traders to place hypothetical trades without a funded account. Perhaps the most important benefit of a practice account is that it allows a trader to become adept at order entry techniques.

Few things are as damaging to a trading account (and a trader's confidence) as pushing the wrong button when opening or exiting a position. It is not uncommon, for example, for a new trader to accidentally add to a losing position instead of closing the trade. Multiple errors in order entry can lead to large, unprotected losing trades. Aside from the devastating financial implications, this situation is incredibly stressful. Practice makes perfect: experiment with order entries before placing real money on the line.

Once a forex trader has opened an account, it may be tempting to take advantage of all the technical analysis tools offered by the trading platform. While many of these indicators are well-suited to the forex markets, it is important to remember to keep analysis techniques to a minimum in order for them to be effective. Using the same types of indicators – such as two volatility indicators or two oscillators, for example – can become redundant and can even give opposing signals. This should be avoided.

Any analysis technique that is not regularly used to enhance trading performance should be removed from the chart. In addition to the tools that are applied to the chart, the overall look of the workspace should be considered. The chosen colors, fonts and types of price bars (line, candle bar, range bar, etc) should create an easy-to-read and interpret chart, allowing the trader to more effectively respond to changing market conditions.

While there is much focus on making money in forex trading, it is important to learn how to avoid losing money. Proper money management techniques are an integral part of successful trading. Many veteran traders would agree that one can enter a position at any price and still make money – it's how one gets out of the trade that matters.

Part of this is knowing when to accept your losses and move on. Always using a protective stop loss is an effective way to make sure that losses remain reasonable. Traders can also consider using a maximum daily loss amount beyond which all positions would be closed and no new trades initiated until the next trading session. While traders should have plans to limit losses, it is equally essential to protect profits. Money management techniques, such as utilizing trailing stops, can help preserve winnings while still giving a trade room to grow.

6. Start Small When Going Live.

Once a trader has done his or her homework, spent time with a practice account and has a trading plan in place, it may be time to go live – that is, start trading with real money at stake. No amount of practice trading can exactly simulate real trading, and as such it is vital to start small when going live.

Factors like emotions and slippage cannot be fully understood and accounted for until trading live. Additionally, a trading plan that performed like champ in backtesting results or practice trading could, in reality, fail miserably when applied to a live market. By starting small, a trader can evaluate his or her trading plan and emotions, and gain more practice in executing precise order entries – without risking the entire trading account in the process.

Forex trading is unique in the amount of leverage that is afforded to its participants. One of the reasons forex is so attractive is that traders have the opportunity to make potentially large profits with a very small investment – sometimes as little as $50. Properly used, leverage does provide potential for growth; however, leverage can just as easily amplify losses. A trader can control the amount of leverage used by basing position size on the account balance. For example, if a trader has $10,000 in a forex account, a $100,000 position (one standard lot) would utilize 10:1 leverage. While the trader could open a much larger position if he or she were to maximize leverage, a smaller position will limit risk. (For additional reading, see Adding Leverage To Your Forex Trading .)

8. Keep Good Records.

9. Understand Tax Implications and Treatment.

10. Treat Trading As a Business.

It is essential to treat forex trading as a business, and to remember that individual wins and losses don't matter in the short run; it is how the trading business performs over time that is important. As such, traders should try to avoid becoming overly emotional with either wins or losses, and treat each as just another day at the office. As with any business, forex trading incurs expenses, losses, taxes, risk and uncertainty. Also, just as small businesses rarely become successful overnight, neither do most forex traders. Planning, setting realistic goals, staying organized and learning from both successes and failures will help ensure a long, successful career as a forex trader.

The worldwide forex market is attractive to many traders because of its low account requirements, round-the-clock trading and access to high amounts of leverage. When approached as a business, forex trading can be profitable and rewarding. In summary, traders can avoid losing money in forex by:

Being well-prepared Having the patience and discipline to study and research Applying sound money management techniques Approaching trading activity as a business.

How to Make Money in Forex.

"Forex" is a shorthand way of referring to the foreign currency exchange. It's the market where currencies from different countries are traded. [1] Investors trade in forex for the same reason that they trade in any other market: because they believe that the value of certain currencies will go up or down over time. Remember, currencies are commodities just like anything else. On some days, they'll go up in value. On other days, they'll go down in value. You can use forex to take advantage of the fluctuation in foreign currency prices to make money.

Steps Edit.

Part One of Three:

Learning Basic Forex Principles Edit.

Part Two of Three:

Finding the Right Forex Broker Edit.

Part Three of Three:

Trading in Forex Successfully Edit.

Community Q&A.

There are a ton of mutual funds and ETFs that specialize in Forex trading. However, you should not just throw your money at a professional broker. You should put a lot of time and effort into selecting a professional broker, especially because ones that invest in Forex trading are limited and probably have very high fees. Pick one that takes into account the risk vs reward that you want.

I would contact them to see if they can add it to the list.

Fidelity Investments -- which enjoys an excellent reputation -- does not specifically trade in commodity futures, and therefore would not be listed with CFTC. Fidelity does offer brokerage services that could help you invest in that field if you so desired, but they might not want to advise you in that area.

Warnings Edit.

Related wikiHows Edit.

Read Forex Charts.

Calculate Arbitrage in Forex.

Buy and Sell Currency.

Become a Trader.

Buy Euros Online.

Verify the Authenticity of Iraqi Dinars.

Made Recently.

Upload a picture for other readers to see.

Expert Review By:

This version of How to Make Money in Forex was reviewed by Scott Maderer on June 15, 2016.

Why Do Many Forex Traders Lose Money? Here is the Number 1 Mistake.

Big data analysis, algorithmic trading, and retail trader sentiment.

We look through 43 million real trades to measure trader performance Majority of trades are successful and yet traders are losing Here is what we believe to be the number one mistake FX traders make.

W hy do major currency moves bring increased trader losses? To find out, the DailyFX research team has looked through over 40 million real trades placed via a major FX broker's trading platforms. In this article , we look at the biggest mistake that forex traders make, and a way to trade appropriately .

Why Does the Average Forex Trader Lose Money?

The average forex trader loses money, which is in itself a very discouraging fact. But why? Put simply, human psychology makes trading difficult.

We looked at over 43 million real trades placed on a major FX broker's trading servers from Q2, 2014 – Q1, 2015 and came to some very interesting conclusions. The first is encouraging: traders make money most of the time as over 50% of trades are closed out at a gain.

Percent of All Trades Closed Out at a Gain and Loss per Currency Pair.

Data source: Derived from data from a major FX broker* across 15 most traded currency pairs from 3/1/2014 to 3/31/2015.

The above chart shows results of over 43 million trades conducted by these traders worldwide from Q2, 2014 through Q1, 2015 across the 15 most popular currency pairs. The blue bar shows the percentage of trades that ended with a profit for the trader. Red shows the percentage of trades that ended in loss. For example, the Euro saw an impressive 61% of all trades closed out at a gain. And indeed every single one of these instruments saw the majority of traders turned a profit more than 50 percent of the time.

If traders were right more than half of the time, why did most lose money?

Average Profit/Loss per Winning and Losing Trades per Currency Pair.

Data source: Derived from data from a major FX broker* across 15 most traded currency pairs from 3/1/2014 to 3/31/2015.

The above chart says it all. In blue, it shows the average number of pips traders earned on profitable trades. In red, it shows the average number of pips lost in losing trades. We can now clearly see why traders lose money despite being right more than half the time. They lose more money on their losing trades than they make on their winning trades .

Let’s use EUR/USD as an example. We see that EUR/USD trades were closed out at a profit 61% of the time, but the average losing trade was worth 83 pips while the average winner was only 48 pips. Traders were correct more than half the time, but they lost over 70% more on their losing trades as they won on winning trades. The track record for the volatile GBP/USD pair was even worse. Traders captured profits on 59% of all GBP/USD trades. Yet they overall lost money as they turned an average 43 pip profit on each winner and lost 83 pips on losing trades.

What gives? Identifying that there is a problem is important in itself, but we’ll need to understand the reasons behind it in order to look for a solution.

Cut Losses, Let Profits Run – Why is this So Difficult to Do?

In our study we saw that traders were very good at identifying profitable trading opportunities--closing trades out at a profit over 50 percent of the time. They utlimately lost, however, as the average loss far outweighed the gain. Open nearly any book on trading and the advice is the same: cut your losses early and let your profits run.

When your trade goes against you, close it out . Take the small loss and then try again later, if appropriate. It is better to take a small loss early than a big loss later.

If a trade is in your favor, let it run . It is often tempting to close out at a small gain in order to protect profits, but oftentimes we see that patience can result in greater gains.

But if the solution is so simple, why is the issue so common? The simple answer: human nature. In fact this is not at all limited to trading. To further illustrate the point we draw on significant findings in psychology.

A Simple Wager – Understanding Human Behavior Towards Winning and Losing.

What if I offered you a simple wager on a coin flip? You have two choices. Choice A means you have a 50% chance of winning 1000 dollars and 50% chance of winning nothing. Choice B is a flat 450 point gain. Which would you choose?

50% chance to Win 1000.

50% chance to Win 0.

Expect to win $500 over time.

Over time it makes sense to take Choice A—the expected gain of $500 is greater than the fixed $450. Yet many studies have shown that most people will consistently choose Choice B. Let’s flip the wager and run it again.

50% chance to Lose 1000.

50% chance to Lose 0.

Expect to lose $500 over time.

In this case we can expect to lose less money via Choice B, but in fact studies have shown that the majority of people will pick choice A every single time.

Here we see the issue. Most people avoid risk when it comes to taking profits but then actively seek it if it means avoiding a loss. Why?

Losses Hurt Psychologically far more than Gains Give Pleasure – Prospect Theory.

Nobel prize-winning clinical psychologist Daniel Kahneman based on his research on decision making. His work wasn’t on trading per se but clear implications for trade management and is quite relevant to FX trading. His study on Prospect Theory attempted to model and predict choices people would make between scenarios involving known risks and rewards.

The findings showed something remarkably simple yet profound: most people took more pain from losses than pleasure from gains .

It feels “good enough” to make $450 versus $500 , but accepting a $500 loss hurts too much and many are willing to gamble that the trade turns around.

This doesn’t make any sense from a trading perspective—50 0 dollars lost are equivalent to 50 0 dollars gained; one is not worth more than the other. Why should we then act so differently?

Prospect Theory: Losses Typically Hurt Far More than Gains Give Pleasure.

Taking a purely rational approach to markets means treating a 50 point gain as morally equivalent to a 50 point loss. Unfortunately our data on real trader behavior suggests that the majority can’t do this. We need to think more systematically to improve our chances at success.

Avoid the Common Pitfall.

Avoiding the loss-making problem described above is very simple in theory: gain more in each winning trade than you give back in each losing trade. But how might we do it concretely?

When trading, always follow one simple rule: always seek a bigger reward than the loss you are risking. This is a valuable piece of advice that can be found in almost every trading book.

Typically, this is called a “ reward/risk ratio ”. If you risk losing the same number of pips as you hope to gain, then your reward/risk ratio is 1-to-1 (also written 1:1). If you target a profit of 80 pips with a risk of 40 pips, then you have a 2:1 reward/risk ratio.

If you follow this simple rule, you can be right on the direction of only half of your trades and still make money because you will earn more profits on your winning trades than losses on your losing trades.

What ratio should you use? It depends on the type of trade you are making. We recommend to always use a minimum 1:1 ratio . That way, if you are right only half the time, you will at least break even.

Certain strategies and trading techniques tend to produce high winning percentages as we saw with real trader data. If this is the case, it is possible to use a lower reward/risk ratio—such as between 1:1 and 2:1. For lower probability trading, a higher reward/risk ratio is recommended, such as 2:1, 3:1, or even 4:1. Remember, the higher the reward/risk ratio you choose, the less often you need to correctly predict market direction in order to make money trading. We will discuss different trading techniques in further detail in subsequent installments of this series.

Stick to Your Plan: Use Stops and Limits.

Once you have a trading plan that uses a proper reward/risk ratio, the next challenge is to stick to the plan. Remember, it is natural for humans to want to hold on to losses and take profits early, but it makes for bad trading. We must overcome this natural tendency and remove our emotions from trading. The best way to do this is to set up your trade with Stop-Loss and Limit orders from the beginning .

This will allow you to use the proper reward/risk ratio (1:1 or higher) from the outset, and to stick to it. Once you set them, don’t touch them (One exception: you can move your stop in your favor to lock in profits as the market moves in your favor).

Managing your risk in this way is a part of what many traders call “money management” . Many of the most successful forex traders are right about the market’s direction less than half the time. Since they practice good money management, they cut their losses quickly and let their profits run, so they are still profitable in their overall trading.

Does Using 1:1 Reward to Risk Really Work?

Our data certainly suggest it does. We use our data on our top 15 currency pairs to determine which trader accounts closed their Average Gain at least as large as their Average Loss—or a minimum Reward:Risk of 1:1. Were traders ultimately profitable if they stuck to this rule? Past performance is not indicative of future results, but the results certainly support it.

Our data shows that 53 percent of all accounts which operated on at least a 1:1 Reward to Risk ratio turned a net-profit in our 12-month sample period. Those under 1:1? A mere 17 percent.

T raders who adhered to this rule were 3 times more likely to turn a profit over the course of these 12 months—a substantial difference.

Data source: Derived from data from a major FX broker* across 15 most traded currency pairs from 3/1/2014 to 3/31/2015.

Game Plan: What Strategy Can I Use?

Trade forex with stops and limits set to a risk/reward ratio of 1:1 or higher.

Whenever you place a trade, make sure that you use a stop-loss order. Always make sure that your profit target is at least as far away from your entry price as your stop-loss is. You can certainly set your price target higher, and probably should aim for at least 1:1 regardless of strategy, potentially 2:1 or more in certain circumstances. Then you can choose the market direction correctly only half the time and still make money in your account.

The actual distance you place your stops and limits will depend on the conditions in the market at the time, such as volatility, currency pair, and where you see support and resistance. You can apply the same reward/risk ratio to any trade. If you have a stop level 40 pips away from entry, you should have a profit target 40 pips or more away. If you have a stop level 500 pips away, your profit target should be at least 500 pips away.

We will use this as a basis for further study on real trader behavior as we look to uncover the traits of successful traders.

*Data is drawn from FXCM Inc. accounts excluding Eligible Contract Participants, Clearing Accounts, Hong Kong, and Japan subsidiaries from 3/1/2014 to 3/31/2015.

View the next articles in the Traits of Successful Series:

The Traits of Successful Traders.

This article is a part of our Traits of Successful Traders series.

Over the past several months, The DailyFX Research team has been closely studying the trading trends of traders via a major FX broker. We have gone through an enormous number of statistics and anonymized trading records in order to answer one question: “What separates successful traders from unsuccessful traders?”. We have been using this unique resource to distill some of the “best practices” that successful traders follow, such as the best time of day, appropriate use of leverage, the best currency pairs, and more. Stay tuned for the next article in the Traits of Successful Traders Series.

Analysis prepared and written by David Rodriguez, Quantitative Strategist for DailyFX.

Sign up to David’s e-mail distribution list to receive future e-mail updates on the Traits of Successful Traders series and other reports.

DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.

Upcoming Events.

Forex Economic Calendar.

Past performance is no indication of future results.

DailyFX is the news and education website of IG Group.