As a trader are there a couple of strong options anyone could recommend? I am a newbie, trying to get my feet wet and start out strong. Is there any one mistake anyone is willing to share as to giving a heads up on what not to do as a newbie?
Hi T_rader6,
Welcome to the forum
Since you're new, start out with a free demo account. You'll be able to follow the price action on the charts and practice placing orders.
Do you play poker? I host a weekly game at my place, and I feel that mentally, it's helped me accept that bad beats are just part of the game. I can analyze the economic data and the charts all I want, but the market always has the ability to serve up a surprise that can throw your plans for a trade out the window.
I cannot overemphasize this because I see some people continue to struggle without progress because they never accept this fact: good trading is about probabilities, not certainties. No one knows for certain what will happen to market prices in the future. We can only make our best guess based on analyzing economic data and chart patterns. Some people are better at analyzing economic data and chart patterns than others, but even the best traders will have losing trades.
I've lost count of how many people I've met, some of them very clever mind you, who've ruined their chances of lasting success as traders by risking too much money on a single position. They do this either by using too much leverage because they can't imagine a situation where their trade could lose money, or they can't bring themselves to close a losing trade so they let a small loss grow into a huge loss.
The key is to accept that your analysis will be proven wrong by the market from time to time, and rather than trying to avoid that eventuality, instead focus on how you can minimize the damage on your losing trades. That means knowing how much money you're willing to risk on a trade BEFORE you open it. I keep my losses small by setting stops and STICKING TO THEM and by limiting my leverage to 10:1 even though as a US resident I can use up to 50:1 leverage.
There are many things you will learn trading which is one of the reasons it's such a rewarding experience, but I think if you can start by accepting that you will have losing trades, you will be off to a good start. Then after that you look to build your trading skills by learning techniques to analyze economic data and chart patterns to identify higher probability trading opportunities.
Good trading!
Jason
