So, you want to become a professional Forex trader. That’s why you are here, reading this article. I’ll tell you how you can achieve this. There are so many things that you must consider if you are serious about becoming a professional Forex trader who makes money consistently. This is possible to achieve if you follow the right track. But it becomes impossible to achieve if you don’t do it the right way. Forex trading can be the best event of your life, while it can be the biggest disaster also. It all depends on you, the way you choose to learn and trade Forex and the way you will manage your mind. Make sure to read this article to the end, and also come back to read it over, once in a while, because we human beings are forgetful creatures. We forget our goals, when our emotions take our control, or when we think that the grass is greener at the other side.
What you read here, you can never read it anywhere else because it is written by professional and real Forex traders, not freelance writers and Internet marketers who just want to do some content marketing.
Before you want to know how to become a professional Forex trader, you must know what professional Forex trading is and who is a professional Forex trader.
Who Is a Professional Forex Trader?
A professional Forex trader is someone who makes money through Forex trading consistency. So, a professional Forex trader is indeed a consistently profitable Forex trader. It doesn’t matter how much profit such a Forex trader makes. Even if they can make as low as 1% profit per month, as long as they can do it consistently and they can repeat it over and over every month, they are professional Forex traders. A trader who makes for example 50% profit this month, but they wipe out the whole profit the next month is not even a Forex trader, let alone the professional one.
Additionally, a professional Forex trader is someone whose profit and losses have a clear and consistent pattern in all positions they take, while their losses are always smaller than their gains. Someone who loses 10% of their capital in one trade, but then they get lucky to recover the loss with another trade or with the next several trades is still a novice trader. A professional Forex trader always has a clear risk to reward ratio in all the positions they take. They don’t risk more than 2% of their capital, while their profit is usually much larger or at least 2-4 times bigger than their risk in each position (read this article to learn about risk and reward). I said “at least” because many professional traders are able to maximize their profit even more.
Trading is all about discipline and consistency, and a professional Forex trader is someone who is disciplined and consistent in all the positions they take, and their track record of their last a few years of trading proves this.
This was the meaning of professional Forex trading briefly. If you are new to Forex and you don’t know the basics, and you don’t know how Forex traders make money, I recommend you read this article first and then come back to read the current article.
How to Become a Professional Forex Trader
Now that you know what Forex trading is and what professional Forex trading means, you are ready to learn how to become a professional Forex trader:
- Learn the Forex trading basics
- Learn Forex chart analysis
- Demo-trade at least for 6-12 months
- Open a small live account to practice with real money for another 6-12 months at least
- Increase your account size if you have become qualified to do so
It is impossible to become a professional Forex trader overnight. It takes time, effort and patience. That’s why there are so many who want to become professional Forex traders, but most of them lose money, and the number of the real professional Forex traders is not even 1 out of 1000 Forex traders. Most traders think that they have become professional Forex traders, but they are wrong, according to the definition of professional Forex trading I gave you above. Don’t be one of them if you don’t want to waste your time and money. You must spend time to become a professional Forex trader, but you don’t have to spend or lose money to do it. If you follow the above steps properly, you won’t lose any money before you become a professional Forex trader. I am going to explain the above steps in more detail now. Make sure you read the rest of this article carefully.
Learn the Forex Trading Basics
I have seen so many novice Forex traders who start trading with real money after reading an eBook, watching some videos or reading some articles. These traders are the ones who lose lots of money and wipe out their accounts at least a few times before they give up on Forex trading forever. Learning the basics is the first step of becoming professional in everything, and Forex trading is not an exception. You may think that Forex or stock trading is so easy when you look at the price charts and the price movements and ups and downs that have already formed. It makes you think that buying at the lows and selling at the highs is very easy. But that is the price history of the market that you are looking at. Real time trading, while the price is fluctuating and forming the highs and lows is different.
If you are so new to Forex trading and you are serious about becoming a professional Forex trader, start from this article first. It is a short article that explains what Forex is and how Forex traders make money by buying and selling currencies against each other.
Learn Forex Chart Analysis
After learning the Forex basics, learn the basics of Forex chart analysis here. You also need to learn about candlesticks as well. You can read this article to do so. Once you are done, you should refer to our website’s Forex Trading Category to read all the other Forex related articles. Don’t worry. There are not too many. We have simplified everything in our articles. Whereas on other sites, they ‘ve made the work too complicated and confusing. Here, you learn the trading strategy that we use to trade. Our Forex trading strategy is based on technical analysis which is something a professional Forex trader must know.
Unlike what some people think, technical analysis is the best trading strategy for those who have just started and want to become professional Forex traders. Other methods like news trading are not efficient and are harder and risker. In some of our articles, we have explained why you’d better to avoid trading strategies like news trading. You must read all of those articles because they prevent you from making the same mistakes that many novice traders make. They become fooled by some articles or videos that news or fundamental trading is the best because they tell you about the price movements in advance. Whether the economic news and fundamentals tell you about the price movements in advance or not, as a novice trader, you cannot use them to trade currencies. We have explained in some of our articles like here, here and here.
Once you learn the chart analysis basics, you need to practice to improve your skill.
Demo-Trade at Least for 6-12 Months
Demo-trading is a must if you want to become a professional Forex trader without losing lots of money. Those who start trading with real money right after learning the basics are the biggest losers in this business. Never let your education or profession deceive you and make you think that because you are a good doctor, engineer, professor, accountant, driver, carpenter, locksmith, or whatever, you don’t need to demo-trade and demo-trading is for those who have never been in college or university, or is for those who are not professional in anything. If you don’t agree, just start trading with real money after learning the basics and you will see. I guarantee that you will wipe out your account.
Your ego makes you make a big mess in Forex or stock trading. Markets don’t know you and don’t care who you are and what you know. They don’t listen to you. They move on their own way. And they blow up your money, if you haven’t become skilled and expert enough yet, no matter if you have a math or physics PhD. You must demo-trade based on the formula that I am going to give you in this article. Maybe you are so professional in something, but this doesn’t mean that you are also a professional Forex trader, or Forex trading is going to be too easy for you, just because you are educated and your IQ is too high. Experience has proven that educated people who are analytic, obsessive and overconfident lose more than others in Forex and stock trading. So, do yourself and your money a big favor and don’t trade with real money until you become qualified enough to do so, based on what I am going to tell you below.
Here is the steps you must complete in demo-trading:
1. Open a small demo account
After learning the Forex trading and chart analysis basics, open a small demo account with a broker to start your demo-trading journey. Your demo account’s balance/size must be exactly the same as the live account that you should open in future and after completing the demo-trading step. I suggest you open a $1,000 or a $5,000 demo account because once you complete this step, you need to open a small live account which is much smaller than the account you can afford to open when you will start trading Forex professionally.
For example, if your goal is to start with a $100,000 live account when it is the time to, then you must not do this at the beginning of your live trading, and you must start with a small $1,000 or $5,000 live account. I will explain why you must do this when it is the time to explain about live trading. Therefore, start with a small demo account, for the reason I explained in the above paragraph.
2. Take your demo account serious
You want to become a professional Forex trader, not a game player. Therefore, you must take your demo account as seriously and important as your live account. You must have the same discipline with your demo account, as if you are trading with real money. If you always remind yourself that you are trading with a demo account, and so it is okay to lose money with it and overtrade and take positions when there is no signal or trade setup, then you will develop these bad habits in yourself, and you will do the same with your live account too. So, forget that you are trading with a demo account. Treat it as a real and serious account.
For those who want to become professional Forex traders, demo-trading is like driving with a driving instructor. While it is too important and serious, it is necessary too and you must do it, otherwise you won’t become a licensed driver. Forget about exceptions in this case. I know some people say I learned how to drive without learning from a driving instructor. Maybe this is true, but here I am talking about the roadmap of becoming a professional Forex trader. I am not talking about exceptions. You must demo-trade seriously before you start trading with real money.
3. Demo-trade for 6-12 months, after becoming a consistently profitable demo-trader
You will lose when you start demo-trading. This is normal. However, stick to your trading strategy, keep your losses small and never risk more than 2% of your capital even in demo-trading. Improve your skills to become profitable finally. I don’t know how long it takes you to achieve this. It can be different from person to person. However, when you become profitable every month, while (1) your losses are small, (2) you don’t risk more than 2% of your account and (3) your grains are reasonably larger than your losses (learn about the ratio of risk and reward here and here), then you must repeat this success at least for 6-12 consecutive months.
As long as you haven’t become a consistently profitable demo-trader, you should not go to the next step. You won’t become a consistently profitable and professional Forex trader, if you don’t become a consistently profitable demo-trader. When you cannot make profit with a demo account, how are you going to make profit with a live account?
So, take your demo-trading seriously. Stick to your trading strategy and demo-trade to become an expert in it. When you become able to repeat your success for 6-12 months, you are one big step closer to becoming a professional Forex trader.
Please note that your trading track record must show your consistency. You should be profitable for 6-12 consecutive months, while your monthly profit is almost the same every month. Here, I am not talking about the average monthly profit for 6-12 month. I am talking about the profit of each individual month. If you make a 2% profit this month, 20% the next month and -10% the month after, it means you are not consistent yet. But if you make, for example 15-20% profit per month, for 6-12 consecutive months, while you have been taking only a 2% risk in each of your positions, and your gains are reasonably larger than your losses, then you have become a consistently profitable demo-trader.
This is an important step to become a professional Forex trader. Remember that someone who hasn’t become a consistently profitable demo trader yet, cannot become a consistently profitable real account trader too. If you can pass this stage successfully, you won’t lose money when you start trading with real money. But if you don’t become a consistently profitable demo-trader, you will lose more when you start trading with a live account.
Open a Small Live Account
Once you succeed to make profit consistently for 6-12 months, under the conditions I explained above, you can start a small live account. I say a small live account because this live account is still part of your practicing, and so it has to be smaller than the maximum capital you can afford to risk in Forex trading. For example, if you want to trade with a $100,000 account after becoming a professional Forex trader, then your first live account should be a $5,000 account.
So, you open a small account and you start trading with it, exactly as you have been trading with your demo account. You must follow exactly the same discipline, consistency and trading strategy with this account too. There is no difference between this account, your demo account, and the bigger account you will trade when you become a professional and full-time Forex trader. You must make profit consistently with this account for 6-12 months as well.
The risk and reward and everything have to be the same as your demo account. I mean, you should not risk more or less than 2% with this account too, and your gains must be reasonably larger than your losses in all positions.
The goal of trading with this account is to make sure that trading with real money doesn’t trigger harmful emotions, FEAR and GREAD, in you. If you skip this step, chances are you lose a lot when you start trading with a serious live account, although you have been able to make profit with your demo account for 6-12 months.
Increase Your Account Size
If you can make profit with your small live account for 6-12 consecutive months, then you can increase your account size by depositing more money in it, if you want and if you can afford to. If you cannot afford a bigger account, then you can keep trading and growing the same account. It will become a huge wealth if you follow the same track, make profit consistently and grow your account for a few years. Read this article to learn how a small account can turn into millions if you grow it slowly but surely. As I always emphasize, consistency is the success key in this business. A small account (read this article to learn how you can start with a small capital) can grow into millions if you grow it consistently. But a big account can become wiped out if you don’t know how to trade, you take big risks, your losses are bigger than your gains, and your success rate is not reasonable.
Refer to this article and use our Excel calculator to see how you can turn a $500 account into $354,401 after three years of consistent trading.
Is It Easy to Become a Professional Forex Trader?
I don’t know if it is easy or not. It needs patience and consistency. So, it is too hard for some people who don’t have the patience and want to get rich overnight. It is easy for patient, disciplined and consistent people.
If you really want to become a professional Forex trader who makes profit consistently every month, you must follow the above steps. There is no shortcut. Nobody can make you a professional Forex trader within a short time. So, don’t get fooled by the so-called Forex gurus and mentors. Most of them are not real traders. Also, don’t waste your time with those who say they have a holy-grail Forex trading strategy that if they teach it to you, you will become the best Forex trader in the world. There is no such a trading strategy. If there is a holy-grail trading strategy, it is nothing but the classic chart analysis, which is one of the steps I outlined and explained above. If you cannot analyze the markets the way professional traders like Charles Dow did, you won’t become a professional Forex trader and you will only waste time and money.
To become a professional Forex trader, you don’t need expensive computers with several monitors around your desk. You can pass all the steps with a simple 17″ laptop. You don’t need checking too many charts, time-frames, currency pairs and markets. You can focus on a few of the most popular currency pairs and forget about the rest. Many professional Forex or stock traders focus on one market. They don’t waste their time and energy on checking too many charts and markets. However, as they have become skilled and expert enough to have the best and most optimum entry and exit, and their losses are much smaller than their gains, they make enough profit consistently.
