Forex Top Reasons Forex Traders Fail

The forex market is the largest and most accessible financial market in the world, but although there are many forex investors, few are truly successful ones. Many traders fail for the same reasons that investors fail in other asset classes. In addition, the extreme amount of leverage - the use of borrowed capital to increase the potential return of investments - provided by the market, and the relatively small amounts of margin required when trading currencies, deny traders the opportunity to make numerous low-risk mistakes. Factors specific to trading currencies can cause some traders to expect greater investment returns than the market can consistently offer, or to take more risk than they would when trading in other markets.

Forex Market Trading Hazards
Certain mistakes can keep traders from achieving their investment goals. Following are some of the common pitfalls that can plague forex traders:

  • Not Maintaining Trading Discipline
    The largest mistake any trader can make is to let emotions control trading decisions. Becoming a successful forex trader means achieving a few big wins while suffering many smaller losses. Experiencing many consecutive losses is difficult to handle emotionally and can test a trader's patience and confidence. Trying to beat the market or giving in to fear and greed can lead to cutting winners short and letting losing trades run out of control. Conquering emotion is achieved by trading within a well-constructed trading plan that assists in maintaining trading discipline.
  • Trading Without a Plan
    Whether one trades forex or any other asset class, the first step in achieving success is to create and follow a trading plan. "Failing to plan is planning to fail" is an adage that holds true for any type of trading. The successful trader works within a documented plan that includes risk management rules and specifies the expected return on investment (ROI). Adhering to a strategic trading plan can help investors evade some of the most common trading pitfalls; if you don't have a plan, you're selling yourself short in what you can accomplish in the forex market.
  • Failing to Adapt to the Market
    Before the market even opens, you should create a plan for every trade. Conducting scenario analysis and planning the moves and countermoves for every potential market situation can significantly reduce the risk of large, unexpected losses. As the market changes, it presents new opportunities and risks. No panacea or foolproof "system" can persistently prevail over the long term. The most successful traders adapt to market changes and modify their strategies to conform to them. Successful traders plan for low probability events and are rarely surprised if they occur. Through an education and adaptation process, they stay ahead of the pack and continuously find new and creative ways to profit from the evolving market.
  • Learning Through Trial and Error
    Without a doubt, the most expensive way to learn to trade the currency markets is through trial and error. Discovering the appropriate trading strategies by learning from your mistakes is not an efficient way to trade any market. Since forex is considerably different from the equity market, the probability of new traders sustaining account-crippling losses is high. The most efficient way to become a successful currency trader is to access the experience of successful traders. This can be done through a formal trading education or through a mentor relationship with someone who has a notable track record. One of the best ways to perfect your skills is to shadow a successful trader, especially when you add hours of practice on your own.
  • Having Unrealistic Expectations
    No matter what anyone says, trading forex is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Becoming proficient enough to accumulate profits is not a sprint - it's a marathon. Success requires recurrent efforts to master the strategies involved. Swinging for the fences or trying to force the market to provide abnormal returns usually results in traders risking more capital than warranted by the potential profits. Foregoing trade discipline to gamble on unrealistic gains means abandoning risk and money management rules that are designed to prevent market remorse.
  • Poor Risk and Money Management
    Traders should put as much focus on risk management as they do on developing strategy. Some naive individuals will trade without protection and abstain from using stop losses and similar tactics in fear of being stopped out too early. At any given time, successful traders know exactly how much of their investment capital is at risk and are satisfied that it is appropriate in relation to the projected benefits. As the trading account becomes larger, capital preservation becomes more important. Diversification among trading strategies and currency pairs, in concert with the appropriate position sizing, can insulate a trading account from unfixable losses. Superior traders will segment their accounts into separate risk/return tranches, where only a small portion of their account is used for high-risk trades and the balance is traded conservatively. This type of asset allocation strategy will also ensure that low-probability events and broken trades cannot devastate one's trading account.

Managing Leverage

Although these mistakes can afflict all types of traders and investors, issues inherent in the forex market can significantly increase trading risks. The significant amount of financial leverage afforded forex traders presents additional risk that must be managed.

Leverage provides traders with an opportunity to enhance returns. But leverage and the commensurate financial risk is a double-edged sword that amplifies the downside as much as it adds to potential gains. The forex market allows traders to leverage their accounts as much as 400:1, which can lead to massive trading gains in some cases - and account for crippling losses in others. The market allows traders to use vast amounts of financial risk, but in many cases it is in a trader's best interest to limit the amount of leverage used.

Most professional traders use about 2:1 leverage by trading one standard lot ($100,000) for every $50,000 in their trading accounts. This coincides with one mini lot ($10,000) for every $5,000 and one micro lot ($1,000) for every $500 of account value. The amount of leverage available comes from the amount of margin that brokers require for each trade. Margin is simply a good faith deposit that you make to insulate the broker from potential losses on a trade. The bank pools the margin deposits into one very large margin deposit that it uses to make trades with the interbank market. Anyone that has ever had a trade go horribly wrong knows about the dreadful margin call, where brokers demand additional cash deposits; if they don't get them, they will sell the position at a loss to mitigate further losses or recoup their capital.

Many forex brokers require various amounts of margin, which translates into the following popular leverage ratios:

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ason many forex traders fail is that they are undercapitalized in relation to the size of the trades they make. It is either greed or the prospect of controlling vast amounts of money with only a small amount of capital that coerces forex traders to take on such huge and fragile financial risk. For example, at a 100:1 leverage (a rather common leverage ratio), it only takes a -1% change in price to result in a 100% loss. And every loss, even the small ones taken by being stopped out of a trade early, only exacerbates the problem by reducing the overall account balance and further increasing the leverage ratio.

Not only does leverage magnify losses, but it also increases transaction costs as a percent of account value. For example, if a trader with a mini account of $500 uses 100:1 leverage by buying five mini lots ($10,000) of a currency pair with a five-pip spread, the trader also incurs $25 in transaction costs [(1/pip x 5 pip spread) x 5 lots]. Before the trade even begins, he or she has to catch up, since the $25 in transaction costs represents 5% of the account value. The higher the leverage, the higher the transaction costs as a percentage of account value, and these costs increase as the account value drops.

While the forex market is expected to be less volatile in the long term than the equity market, it is obvious that the inability to withstand periodic losses and the negative effect of those periodic losses through high leverage levels are a disaster waiting to happen. These issues are compounded by the fact that the forex market contains a significant level of macroeconomic and political risks that can create short-term pricing inefficiencies and play havoc with the value of certain currency pairs.

In Summary
Many of the factors that cause forex traders to fail are similar to those that plague investors in other asset classes. The simplest way to avoid some of these pitfalls is to build a relationship with other successful forex traders who can teach you the trading disciplines required by the asset class, including the risk and money management rules required to trade the forex market. Only then will you be able to plan appropriately and trade with the return expectations that keep you from taking excessive risk for the potential benefits.

While understanding the macroeconomic, technical and fundamental analysis necessary for trading forex is as important as the requisite trading psychology, one of the largest factors that separates success from failure is a trader's ability to manage a trading account. The keys to account management include making sure to be sufficiently capitalized, using appropriate trade sizing and limiting financial risk by using smart leverage levels.

Robert Stammers can be contacted at the CFA Institute and you can also Follow @robertstammers on Twitter
 
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"Learning Through Trial and Error Without a doubt, the most expensive way to learn to trade the currency markets is through trial and error. Discovering the appropriate trading strategies by learning from your mistakes is not an efficient way to trade any market. Since forex is considerably different from the equity market, the probability of new traders sustaining account-crippling losses is high. The most efficient way to become a successful currency trader is to access the experience of successful traders. This can be done through a formal trading education or through a mentor relationship with someone who has a notable track record. One of the best ways to perfect your skills is to shadow a successful trader, especially when you add hours of practice on your own."

I agree for the most part except for this above. I think learing through trial and error is the best way to learn trading than having someone show you how to trade or attending seminar from people who never traded or had very little experience trading. First hand experience through trial and error, nothing can beat that. Also, copying a trading strategy from someone may not be suitable for everyone because we all have different approach to money management, risk tolerance, and trading style etc... Also, I don't see forex as any different than equity market. They both are risky and merciless. For anyone to become a successful trader, there is no short cut via seminar or some one shwing you how to trade. Will required to get over the learning curve by trading every day with real money on the line.
 
Informative

Fantastic advice given in this article. I now have a deeper insight in many areas that were "misty" to me and will put the good advice towards devising a strategic approach towards my trading goals.

Much appreciated

Profitatlast
 
formal education is a scam

Its just a money maker, nobody would work if seminars were good

learn yourself
 
On the ball great article.
Sadly, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Large insititutions have strict money & risk management rules and tough mentors watching over top graduate recruits to instill the discipline and professional approach to trading. Moreover, non-performers are quickly dropped or shifted sideways.
Individuals with greed and pots of cash often have not much at all.
Certainly more of a marathon to individual traders than speedy gains to riches.

Great article, should be read two or three times by all beginners and digested well.
 
Great article. It really provides the biggest donts for anyone looking to get into FOREX trading. Reading this will help new traders from losing their shirts in the market.
 
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