So, you'd like to trade the markets for a living - get extremely rich very quickly - work just an hour a day - and so on.

Welcome to the vastly exaggerated world of marketing, “trading”.

Since I first became interested in trading in 1997 these were, and still are the
messages that people interested in trading have to endure. I was fed the belief
that I could turn $2000 into $100,000 in a year.

Larry Williams really did turn $10,000 into over $1,000,000 in the 1994 (I think) “traders competition” held annually. (Never before or since has anyone come even remotely close!!)

So it's with these kind of totally unrealistic beliefs that most of us approach
trading and we suffer the inevitable disappointment when reality finally hits
home. So, before we go any further please let me gently deflate your expectations to something approaching reality.

1 Trading is as much “art” as “science”. Whilst totally mechanical systems
do exist they only work at certain times of the year, month, day, depending on the time-frame they trade. For the rest of the times they lose money !
It's only by continuing to trade and eventually scoring several home runs together
that they manage to show a profit – usually a relatively small profit. As retail
traders we simply don't have the resources to run such systems.

2 If your trading system makes a profit of 20% per month then keep doing
it! Because that is a great profit to show. Compound that each month for a year and you'll turn $1000 into $9000. Do it a 2nd year and you've got $80,000. Now you're making $16,000 a month.

3 Expect to spend several thousand dollars on “education” to learn what
you'll need to know to “make it”

4 Expect to spend at least 2 or 3 years learning your new profession – I
don't mean full time of course. You'll need to “not give up your day job” until you
are proficient at trading. You wouldn't stop working the moment you started a course learning to be an Accountant, Nurse, Plumber, whatever would you. Yet so often, I get to know of people who have given up their profession, sold their home and started trading with just a few months experience.

Don't Do It !

5 Trading is all about the losing trades not the winners. Anyone could
trade if all you had was winners! Trading is different to anything else I have ever encountered. With any other skill you learn it to a point where you can do it and get it right pretty much all the time – you don't learn to swim then find yourself nearly drowning; you don't learn to cycle then keep falling off.

But with trading you always lose, no matter how good you get you always have
losing trades that would normally mean you haven't mastered the skill. But with
trading losing is trading, it's inseparable.

So, you need to develop a mindset that doesn't separate losing from winning –
they're all just trades. You must be able to see the bigger picture where losers and
winners make up the picture.

Now, hopefully, with a slightly more realistic approach we'll look at the “best”
route from complete beginner to professional. You may of course be somewhere
along this journey – just pick it up wherever you are.

STARTING OUT

Know Yourself and trade what will suit your character

For instance, consider these things:-

All of these will affect what and how you should trade. However, if you're like me
it will be very difficult to decide what and how to trade without trying it first. So
do expect to chop and change regularly in the first year or two – you may well be
surprised to find out what really suits you and what that says about who you
really are! In the meantime of course it will feel like you're spending money on courses,
books, seminars and so on which is all wasted: it's not.

It's all great education and you'll never be a well rounded trader without a broad
knowledge of the subject which is only gained by several trips up blind alleys.
Don't let this put you off reaching your goal – keep the big picture in mind.

NEXT.....

Take small steps.......
Can you make $100,000 a year if you can't make $8,000 a month ?
Can you make $8,000 a month before you've made $2,000 ?
Can you make $2,000 before you've made $500.

So do things progressively and set realistic targets whilst keeping the long term
goal in mind.

Start as small as you can.

Once you can trade single contracts in a small market by whatever method you're
currently using then just keep doing it for a while. After a while trade 2 contracts
for sometime. Then 3 and so on.

Remember that even a small market will be able to provide you with all the
wealth you could want if you have mastered it. Just slowly build-up your account
and gradually increase your trade size; the markets will still be there next month
and next year.

Don't rush....
In future articles we'll look at the common trading techniques and how you
can adapt them to suit you and just what results you can expect from them
Meanwhile trade cautiously but at the same time be brave – just one of the
typical conundrums of trading.

Regards

Matt Sharp