By Your Trading Coach,

Trading Angel

Forex trading is certainly not a perfect job but it is a pretty good one. I started reading about trading in 2015 but in the past few years it has spun into a full on passion and career, so in this blog post I’m going to share with you why I love being a forex trader and trading coach in 2024. For the sake of balance I will also include some of the negatives at the end so you are not convinced into believing it is like living a complete dream and impulsively quit your day job (Please don’t do this!! Trading takes time to master like anything else, don’t believe the Instagram account featuring a 21 year old posing in front of a Lamborghini claiming he retired at 19 after 1 trade, he probably rented the car with a credit card he can’t pay off!)

WFH

When we went into lockdown during the pandemic I realised how valuable it was to have a job which you could do from home or a way in which you could make money from home. And I think many other people realised the same thing too as WFH became the new work goals for many of Gen Z. While it wasn’t furlough-able during the pandemic it was sustainable after the furlough system ended and was reassuring that if anything like that happened again and the government couldn’t afford another furlough, forex traders would still be mainly ok. Other advantages to working from home include no wasted time on boring commutes, being able to work in your comfiest clothes and being able to get lots of house admin done in between trades. Working a full time 9-5 always left me feeling tired, overworked, unrepaid and like none of it was even worth it as I could never stay on top of basic tasks, working from home in comparison felt like one of the best life hacks ever discovered.

BE YOUR OWN BOSS

And while I never minded having a boss and always had a relatively positive relationship with those in authority, it’s still pretty good not to have to answer to anyone or worry about being micromanaged. If I’m five minutes late I’m the only person who’s going to yell at me and hold me to account. There is also something really nice about being able to build your own future rather than building someone else’s. When you work for a corporation you are often working hard to make someone else rich, whereas when you work for yourself you are able to pay yourself fairly for your work and make decisions in your best interest.

GETTING FUNDED

Access to funding for traders is now commonplace with many prop firms offering funding. If you fail a test or blow an account you can practice harder and move onto the next one. It’s no longer a case where you have to take university degrees for the slim chance of being offered a placement on a trading floor which may or may not lead to a permanent position. Anyone can apply to funding and there seems to be no shortage of options. There are also prop firms who don’t even require you to pass a challenge first, you are simply able to buy your way into the programme with a couple hundred pounds.

DEALING WITH INTELLIGENT PEOPLE

One of the best parts of working as a trading coach is that I have the privilege of being able to talk to so many intelligent people who I can share ideas with. Many of the traders who contact me looking for trading coaching are smart, driven, ambitious, resourceful people who are also seeking advice elsewhere and taking other trading courses. I often feel so lucky to work as a trading coach as all these people seek me out and in exchange for the coaching I offer them, they are often happy to share their own discoveries with me. I believe that everyone works better when we work together! I have mentees who are so clever that they often send me signals based on the trading strategies which I taught them. This sense of community and everyone working together honestly makes me feel like I have the best job in the world sometimes.

ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

As long as you have a good internet connection you can trade anywhere in the world. Traders often love to take photos of themselves trading by swimming pools or on the beach and other luxury destinations. So far I’ve actually opted to just enjoy the holiday while I’m away rather than turning it into a working holiday, however it’s nice to know I have the option of working abroad if I get bored of the UK. I do actually live near Brighton which is a lovely seaside town in the UK so regular life isn’t so bad for me anyway. I went on holiday to South Africa and seriously thought about moving out for a few months to work but in the end decided it might not actually be plausible as they experience loads of electricity blackouts and the internet connection part of it is pretty crucial. So when I say anywhere in the world, I mean anywhere but South Africa!

AS MANY DAYS OFF AS YOU LIKE

I don’t tend to have many days off to be honest as I do love my job and am happy to work however it is nice to know that you have the option to take as many holiday days as you like.

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

There’s something really motivating about knowing that there is no cap on the amount that you can earn and the harder you work the more money you can make for yourself rather than for your boss.

THE NOT SO GREAT ELEMENTS OF FOREX TRADING FOR A LIVING

As promised, to provide you with balance, I’m going to list a few of the negatives of being a forex trader. I know when you read the above it might be tempting to hand in your notice but I would strongly advise you not to do this until you have finished reading to the bottom of this blog post!

NO GUARANTEES

While I mentioned above that it is liberating to know that there is no price cap or limit to the amount you can earn, with that high reward potential also comes the high risk element and the fact that there are no guarantees. It’s really important when you first start forex trading you do invest in a trading mentor or a forex coach who can help you to understand the risks involved and how to minimise them and protect yourself against any disasters. It’s also a good idea to take a trading course or some trading classes so that you can learn some strategies and trading rules in order to give yourself the best possible start. So while most people start forex trading in order to make more money for themselves, often you do have to make a bit of an initial investment in your education before you start earning that money.

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN TRADE FOREX DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD

While it’s great that you are working from home and being your own boss and answering to no one and just doing your own thing, it does come hand in hand with that fact that just because you can trade doesn’t mean you should. If you are going through a trauma or crisis, suffering from anxiety or suffering from a lack of sleep, these are all reasons why you should probably take the day off. I realise that I’ve actually become a lot more healthy since I started forex trading, and while I understand this is a good thing and should have maybe been at the top half of the blog post, the reason for this is because I’m terrified of not feeling well enough to trade so I often end up missing nights out or anything which involves staying up late. I also always end up waking up before my partner so I can catch the London Open.

FOREX IS SEASONAL

Any good forex trading mentor will let you know the truth about forex trading is that it is actually seasonal. You can’t make money every single day of the week every month of the year. There are months when liquidity dries up and there’s hardly any movement at all in the forex markets. For example July and August are often the months when institutional traders take their summer holidays and these are famously very difficult months to trade in. Also that period between Christmas and New Year also proves to be very difficult for a lot of traders. Ironically, when new traders start trying to trade the financial markets, these are often the periods when they have the most flexibility from work and therefore seem to want to hit trading hard and really dedicate their time to it, often leaving them disappointed and confused about what happened. To be a successful forex trader you will have to be nimble and adjust to the seasons. You might have to learn to trade another market such as commodities or equities and if you are a funded trader this might mean that you need to find a prop firm which allows you to trade these markets. You may also not meet your pay out minimum if you are with a funded trader programme in certain months. You’ll need to be really disciplined with your profits when you are making good profits and understand there may be less profitable months.

ALL MY FRIENDS THINK I DON’T WORK

I know this is a fairly minor complaint about forex trading but it is worth adding here – none of my friends really understand what I do or the fact that I do actually have to work if I want to make money. There seems to be a general understanding that it’s acceptable to ask me for favours in the day and turn up unannounced during the day. I’m also frequently told to take days off. Everyone expects I can take their birthday off as an unpaid holiday or attend every special event and trying to explain that I do actually need to work seems to fall on deaf ears. So if you are going to go into a life of full time forex trading I would make it very clear what your boundaries are and avoid saying you are working from home if you don’t want to be answering the door all day!

SCAMMERS

And finally my least favourite thing of all about forex trading and being a forex trading coach is all the social media scammers which imitate me and try to convince people to give them bitcoin trading money. For the record, as mentioned above, traders can get access to funding from prop firms so there is no need at all for them to ever message you and beg for money. There are some really easy tell-tale signs that you are talking to a scammer and not a real trader, first of all the fact that they ask for trading money is a dead give away. They are also unlikely to be able to verify their ID as they are very unlikely to be who they are posing as. They will almost always ask for you to send bitcoin as a form of payment as this cannot be traced by police and is very difficult to recover or trace who it is. They will likely promise insane returns to tempt you and may even send over fake screenshots. Just remember that any real trader knows there are no guarantees. No trader would ever promise to double your money in a week. The most audacious promise you’re likely to get is 5% a year. While the general public are waking up to the spate of scammers I find it very frustrating having to warn any friends of family who follow me on Instagram that they will likely end up getting messages from fake accounts pretending to be me.

But all in all I love forex trading and I love working as a trading coach

So, until next time,

Happy Trading,

Love From, Your Trading Coach x 

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