I know there is a ton of crap out there advertising this system or that. Mostly it's someone trying to seperate you from your money, but I have found a guy that is truly genuine and teaches people to trade over time. The best part is you can learn enough from him for free, just takes time and practice. He has a site James16 with about 30 guest videos you can download for free. Also there is an ongoing thread at ForexFactory where like minds help each other to learn to be profitable. This is not something you will pick up over night, but if you are dedicated to demo and listen to what the man says in a couple years you can have success. If you have been interested in learning something that can help you out down the road then maybe this is for you. I think it would be xtra cool to pay your barfines with a few pips you made someday lol.

I had beginners luck at trading 4X & then 9-11 happened which really destroyed my account.
After finishing the job where I was contracted I rebuilt the account & started again, but after 9-11 I had lost my stomach for it & couldn't gain on almost any trade.
I would set my stop loss too close or too far & either lose the trade almost before it started or end up losing a lot more than I had gained in several smaller trades up until my wide stop loss trade.

I find OandA.com have the best margins

I also tried automated trading using tons of different formulas, & some seemed to work grandly in an on-line test & then failed miserably when you did them live.

James teaches trading based on Price Action and Support and Resistance. Sounds like support and resistance training is what you need because you will learn where to put your stop with high level of confidence and also what levels are good for profit taking. Automated systems, I wouldn't bother. Put your time into something that will always work, and build a skill that nobody can take from you. Watch the videos and see what I mean, James16 is just a good person and very knowledgable.

Having the stomach is half the battle imo. That is what killed me as I couldn't pull the trigger, even if I was confident that I was right. I will just stick to earning 12-15% on deposit accounts...

If these experts are so smart, why are they peddling courses? If they were so smart, they would be rich and wouldn't want to tell anyone else how they did it. Think about it.

A collegue of mine was approached by 2 forex experts saying they could make good returns on forex trading. He went to see them - they had all the equipment, 6 laptops, links to trading information - 2 intelligent people. My collegue decided that he would test it out and see what they could do with just $5000 of his own money.
After 4 months of trading that $5000 has turned into $4800, mostly a result of fees from the internet forex platform. This is not a magical way to make money; you could get lucky on a few trades but ultimately you will never outperform the market.

Gary, so true. The old saying goes here...those who can't, teach...

I have had positive results from Forex.
But like brain surgery, it isn't something I would do on myself.

Luckily for those that put in the time to learn from him, James does enjoy teaching what he has learned over 25 years of trading. I think I stated that you don't have to spend a dime to learn. Watch the videos for free...and then follow up is available at forexfactory. Download a demo and practice until you are confident. Read books by Mark Douglas on trading psychology, and up to you.

So true. We used to laugh at all these guys peddling magic potions and fix all cures when I was on the trading floor. Like you can learn space walking online you know

FX has become very popular with the seminar and trading course peddlers, they make it sound very easy and almost money for nothing if you do as they teach, and they also IMO charge a good amount of money for information and education that's available for free with a bit of effort and google.

Think about it, if you had a system that was that good you made a consistent profit, why the hell would you let anyone else know about it even if they were paying you $$$$$$$$$$, no you would up your trading and become very rich would you not and keep your secret very much to yourself ?.

The other area that is peddled is Options trading and there's a few educators around who claim to have trained hundreds of thousands of traders but ive never met or heard of any !. if there's one arena in trading were there's a big failure rate its in the options markets.

You then have the brokers who claim to have commission free trading on FX, what a joke this is as they make a very good living by making there money on the spread, if you don't know what the spread is then you shouldn't been even thinking about trading.

To be a good trader you need to be a good risk manager, most very successful traders have win rates below 50%, many its around the 40% mark and even if they go down to a win rate of 30% there still making money, put it like this, if you risk $100 to make $300 and you have a 30% win rate then in 10 trades you have 7 x $100 losses so $700, you have 3 x $300 wins so $900, hey you got it right only 30% but made $200

Trading is also about emotion and discipline and how you cope or control this aspect of your personality, about 80% of people who try and trade dont make it and either give up or blow up, you also need to be well capitalized, think about it, trading is a business, go in with few thousand dollars your chances of success are next to nothing, go in with $100K with well thought out plan and proven method to trade, risk only 1% on any trade and stick with your rules and hey you may join the 20% of those who make money, but then to make serious money or a decent living you then need to be in the top 20% of the successful 20%.

To succeed in trading you need some decent software to back test ideas and strategy's, Tradestation or Tradingblox are the best software packages IMO, then you need data, CSI from the USA is the best for end of day date which is were a beginner should start don't even contemplate intraday trading, you will be eaten alive, read some decent money management books, look out for books by Van Tharpe, read the Market wizards books by a guy called Jack Schwager, decide what approach to the markets suits your personality, then do research and paper trade your ideas, Trading is a skill and a highly skilled one IMO, you wouldn't go and see a doctor or dentist unless they were thoroughly trained, trading is no different but many people happily risk there hard earned after a basic Internet course after a couple of weeks.

Good luck from a 20%er, although still trying hard to join the elite 20%

Great post Alfred you are spot on. I am almost 3 years into it and I still battle with the pyschological issues. I've just fell in love with the potential so I keep on picking myself up. If you want this it is definately going to test your resolve. James16 has given me the edge but learning to accept the losses and move on is still a challenge. In the heat of the moment it's easy to forget that your playing a numbers game, and that you have to stay in the game long enough for your edge to assert itself. The awesome power of compounded interest makes it possible to make a good living but it can just as quickly become your enemy. I wouldn't tell anyone to risk real money unless they have traded a demo account for at least 6 months profitable in a row. If you have a losing month, start over. You'd be surprised how long that can take, about 3 years so far...