Can You Really Make A Living Trading Forex?
Aspiring traders often ask me whether or not it’s really possible to make a living trading the Forex market. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is, yes you can make a living trading the Forex market but you have to consistently do a lot of things right. Most traders simply do not yet possess the necessary trading skill, discipline, patience, or realistic attitude to succeed long-term in the markets.
However, this does not mean that it is impossible. You simply have to learn what you need to do to become a consistently profitable trader, and then do it. Easier said than done, I know. But, I am living proof that you can make a living trading the Forex market, and I personally know other people who make consistent money in the markets. So, it can be done. My story has ultimately led me down the path of helping other traders, so let me give you some valuable insight into what it takes to be able to trade Forex for a living…
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How much money do you need to make a living as a Forex trader?
The first thing you need if you want to make a living trading the Forex market is enough starting capital; if you are under-funded you will have to accept that you will not be making a living from trading Forex any time soon. The exact amount of disposable money that you will need in order trade full-time will be different for everyone. But, generally speaking, if you plan on effectively managing your risk on every trade, you will need a decent amount of money at your disposal in order to trade a large enough position size to make enough money to support yourself while at the same not risking too much of your account on any one trade.
Part Time trading for extra income is more easy to achieve in the early stages of you trading career. You can obviously still trade and make consistent money each month even if you don’t have enough money to allow you to trade for a living just yet. However, instead of putting pressure on yourself to make a lot of money really fast, focus on building a consistently profitable track record and self confidence and the money will follow. Even if you have a lot of money to trade with, if you do not focus on the mechanics of successful Forex trading, you will lose regardless. When I started trading, I started small, and when I became good, I approached people for money to trade, I built up my own capital and then went out on my own. People need to focus on becoming good traders and not focus on how much money they are trading, because let me tell you, if you are good, people will throw money at you to trade for them, and you will be fine in the long run (there are funds and private investors looking for good traders to trade for them, but you need to be good). My most sincere advice in the early stages of your trading pursuits is to aim to be a part time trader and a good one ! Big things will follow for you in the future if you can get this first part right.
So, yes, you do need a relatively large amount of money in order to trade full-time and be a player, but you still must be able to be a consistently profitable trader regardless. If you cannot make consistent profits on a small or medium size trading account you will not make them on a large account either, in the end it’s just Zeros .. $1, $100, $1000 per pip means nothing, it’s all the same.
Learn to trade the daily charts:
I trade mainly off the daily charts, and I teach my students to do the same. If you want to have a realistic chance at making a living as a Forex trader, you need to master trading the daily charts before all else. This is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle of being able to trade for a living.
The daily chart gives us the best combination of accuracy and frequency of price action trading setups. Meaning, you will get a much clearer, accurate, and more relevant view of a market’s price action on the daily chart than you will on any time frame below it. The weekly and monthly charts also provide a good clear view of a market’s overall movement, but they do not provide enough trade setups to be practical enough for the short to mid-term retail Forex trader. The daily chart gives us enough trade-worthy setups each month to be able to make consistent money, while at the same time filtering out a lot of the “random” and less reliable trade signals of the lower time frames. So, the daily chart should be your primary or “core” price action trading chart.
Trading full-time is not about over-analyzing and over-trading, it’s about being a “sniper”; making sure everything is as “perfect” as it can be before risking your money. Combining this high-reward / low-risk “sniper” mentality with a high-probability trading strategy like price action, is your edge in the market, and you must learn to trade the price action setups that I teach on the daily chart first. Focusing your efforts on trading higher time frames will give you a much better perspective on the markets and will greatly reduce the amount of trading mistakes you make.
Trading Forex for a living is the result of doing a lot of things right…
Trading the Forex market for a living does not only depend on being sufficiently funded and trading the daily charts. These two components are important, but there are a lot of other things you have to do too. Including the following:
• Learn and master a truly effective Forex trading strategy like price action.
• After learning and mastering an effective trading strategy, design a tangible and “working” Forex trading plan around it. Refer to this trading plan every day and tweak or update it as you learn and grow as a trader.
• Record your trades in a Forex trading journal and start creating a track record. This is important for keeping you accountable and helping you maintain discipline.
• Identify a logical and tolerable risk amount for every trade you take, do not ever risk more than you are comfortable with losing on any one trade. Practice proper Forex money management.
• Do not over-trade. Doing everything else discussed in this article will help you to not over-trade. But you really have to be consciously aware of this huge trading mistake. Most Forex traders trade too much and in my opinion this is the number one reason most of them fail to make a living in the market.
If you are properly funded, have mastered the daily charts, are consistently and perfectly executing your edge, are following your trading plan, are recording your trades, and not over-trading or over-leveraging, you have a very good shot at eventually making a living from the market. The trick is that you must do ALL these things right. You can’t just do one, you have to be on top of your game all the time to make a living as a trader; it’s not easy or get rich quick.
Learning to trade from a successful trader can help you achieve your goals faster…
Just like any other profession or skill in life is easier to learn from a mentor, learning to trade Forex from a skilled trading mentor is arguable the most efficient and effective way to achieve your trading goals. ( No this is not some marketing pitch lol, I am serious, you need to educate yourself and be around others with the same goals, that is the entire reasons I started my trading community in the first place, ie; to share ideas, to be around other traders who have similar goals and to continue my own learning journey).
For almost 4 years, I have shared all my technical price action trading strategies with the public in my trading course and members’ community. I provide aspiring traders with the necessary pieces of the puzzle, but it is up to them to put them all together, I cannot do this for you. There are many “human” elements to trading that will require much effort on your part to master. If you can master the technical aspects that I teach along with the human elements, trading for a living is a realistically achievable goal for you.
A very excellent and valuable article thanks Nial
Your lessons are the best I have seen, I struggled looking for good strategies untill 2 years ago ,I bumped into your website learn to trade,
I have 2 years now trading on a small account with 9% average returns monthly.
Soon I will be trading a bigger account.
Thanks Nial.
Great Master
Thank you for this important information Nial.
Nial, this was a refreshing article to read! I am highly interested in this area but don’t want to be foolish and burn out right away. Your calm and disciplined approach sounds like a winner to try on a part-time basis and hopefully transition to full-time (I will try your courses too). Having a stay at home wife, I am looking for ways to earn additional money for family in the modern era. Thank you!
I meant “stay at home mom” in my initial comment! Of course, we want our wives to stay at home….
Thank you. I wish I saw this article back when I started. It is good advice for any new trader
This is really helpful to newbies like me. Thank you
Great article. Im just a beginner. I’m sure this will help me understand when and how to trade
I also like for being in this part of last paragraph “to be around other traders who have similar goals and to continue my own learning journey”.
The article is simple and yet still can’t understand how to do all this.
Any Idiot Guide for Beginner please?
Thanks
Paul, we have a beginners guide to forex trading here – https://www.learntotradethemarket.com/forex-university
Very straightforward article Nial, I love it!
Hey what do you think about trailing stops with new swings as an exit strategy in trends for someone who wants a higher reward to risk ratio?
Best regards
Martin
Great article you have. Made me more confident to conquer for ex!
I have read a lot of articles on the web but yours have changed my perspectives. Keep the good work Nial. Pls fellow readers, share this on all social networks and let’s reduce the number of losing traders out there. Lots of traders are dying cos they tend to trade with a loaned capital. Let’s open up their minds and make them benefit from Nial’s good works. This is Lakes from Nigeria.
Thank you! Great article! Had all the answers I was looking for!
Thank you very much! Very impressive and enjoyable!
Thanks man
Hi Nial,
I wish I found this article 2 years ago. Well said about your article. Anyway very big THANK YOU for
this article.
i agree with all that you have said but i have to admit combining all those factors and being diciplined at all of them is not easy but i can say if you have been in forex long enough you learn the hard way and you get pinched to a point were you find yourself not making the same mistekes again i wish i had got such articles earlier
I am keen to learn forex trading but I don’t know where to start. I am currently working in one of the department in limpopo and I’m not sure if becoming a trader will ffect my work. Maybe my other oncern is to understand how both forex and shares work.
Regards,
Dave
Dave, take the beginners guide to forex trading here – https://www.learntotradethemarket.com/forex-university
I am interest in this but i still like to learn more
bravo.
I agree
Good article, but I think that a person has to find himself in the forex market. They have to know what works for them. Learning forex was the most difficult skill I have tried to learn. emotions is a big deal in this market. After learning so much in the forex market, spike trading is the best for me.
Great information in this article. Makes me confident that I can and will do this. Thank you!
Good article I want to start trading and know nothing about it at all,my friend makes a lot of money doing futures trading he has a company doing this he is going to teach me how but before he starts I have to learn about trading ect. Other articles talk down on traders sayin they don’t make money on the other hand you say its possible, well I agree impossible is nothing, hard work will pay of and if you work hard enough analize correctly have good algos you cannot fail
I have no idea in forex trading yet and have seen your blog. It helped me a bit in understanding forex and what needs to be done before investing and not to lose too much money.
Superb article. It’s a great trading course I would recommend it to anyone. I am a newbie and have made double digit returns in my first quarter by following Nialls trading techniques
Always great to read what Nial has to say. Very practical and I can easily relate to it. Though I have dropped forex for a while now due to inability to make a living from it in view of inconsistency and indiscipline. I hope to analyse, digest and practicalise your strategies, when I make up my mind to come back to forex. It is still a kind of first love for me. Keep up the good work
Just google up the tittle of this article and you will be met with a deluge of money hungry people who have no idea about trading..even the ones who have been trading for years and are unsuccessful are asking the same question. Most if not all have the same problems with patience and keep jumping from one system to another in hopes of finding the holy grail. Your search ends right here right now with the information on this site… price action! Keep things simple with bigger time frames and sound bankroll management, be consistent in your approach, have some sticking power and relax.. you will see the results that the majority never see.
Thanks, Nial, Great read, good info… Have been trading for a year now… Looking for a semi-auto trade journal software, do you know of a good one ? Also, Multi-account manager, Like MIG, so I can trade for family and frieinds ? Many Thanks…
Hi Nial, I really appreciate your tremendous help in helping me to my feet in forex trading. Having only traded for 3 months and going nowhere, your articles addressed all my greatest challenges. its very very encouraging. thanks so much once again
A genuine teacher, honest in approach,reading his articles gave me at least some hope that I should hold on.
And the fear factor of the forex may be a lie.
Regards,
emk
hello
yes did read all very interesting cannot wait too joint your full course i knew about price action but not easy too mastered then i believed you are the most professional talented too teach forex ,hes so many garbage on the net hes nice too see at last someone very honest.
many thanks NIAL
Another very interesting article, thanks Nial and God Bless
Nice article! i totally agree with your daily chart principle, my trade is good on the weekly chart but my trade takes longer time though winning percentage is high and profit is good too but anyone who is thinking of trading for living cannot look into this long term perspective. I will tell you, look at the weekly chart for trending markets, you will hardly be disappointed. Happy trading
Hello, Nial.
Thanks for the article. I’m very new to price action and really enjoy your educational materials. Two questions. Your focus is on FOREX. Can the same principles be applied to stock? Also, in this article you say to master the daily charts yet most of your other material focuses on the 4h. Any clarification you can provide would be appreciated. Thanks.
Great article Nial, this question popped up in my mind an you answered it accurately and clearly. Thanks!
Jim
Nial,
Your lessons are priceless and great.
Thank u.
Rikus
thank you again Nial Good work.
As a newbie member to the site I am just amazed at the content and above all the passion from Nial to help others to trade successfully. I am yet to see another site come close this one. It has taken me awhile to understand the fundamentals of education in trading and the above article cements in my mind that until all the factors outlined above are implemented then and only then will I start trading and aspiring to my goals.
Many thanks Nial.
Cheers!
Hi Nial,
This is a very good article. As always you are spot on.
Thanks for sharing
wonderful article as usual Nial,more power ur elbows
Great article Nial, this is my ultimate goal but right now I am still learning the business, the hardest part is controlling the human elements and not over trading that as you put it is the #1 killer. Your method is truly the best I have no doubts. Your course is the best investment I have ever made.
Thanks man.
Dear Nial,I am a retired person and really wants to “Really make a living trading Forex” I have read your article with great interest, exactly word by word.For few years I am doing trading on demo but could not succeed due to inexperience. Your article was really opening and I realized what mistakes I was making. I intend to follow your instructions seriously and will consult you time and again if you allow me.
I totally agree that consulting a mentor like you is very much needed for traders like me.
Regards
Jawed
HI NIAL
YOU TRUELY ARE A TOTAL PROFESSIONAL,ALL OF YOUR ARTICLES ARE ALWAYS CLEAR,CLEAN,AND TO THE POINT.OVER THE LAST YEAR I HAVE READ,STUDIED,AND TRIED TO APPLY EVERY THING AND I MEAN EVERY THING THAT YOU SAY TO DO.I HAVE NEVER READ ANY OTHER BOOK,ARTICLE, BY ANY ONE BUT YOU ABOUT THIS SUBJECT.
YOU ARE TRUELY ARE GREAT TEACHER.
I CAN NOT THANK YOU ENOUGH.
Great stuff! Both realistic and encouraging.
I am a new trader, but I doubled my account balance in under an hour, just by using price action analysis of the chart.
Looking forward to using forex as a career :) see you in the future Nial.
This is one of the best thing I’ve ever learnt on forex. its a secret Mr Fuller. I’ll give this for $1Million, but u said we should share it free.Good Job, I cant wait to meet u in Australia.
thanks nial for the great topic you have discussed. excepting some more topic in near future,thanks again.
Nial,
As a beginner learning trading, I can see you have well summarized what needs to be followed to become successful in trading.
Thank you for sharing.
Kusum
Thanks Nial,i cant thank you enough your teachings has made me a profitable trader.may GOD continue to bless you,i do appreciate.
With many brokers, a forex trader can start with less than $500 and plan to make ten cents per pip in a microlot trade. Money management is important for all of us. We need to be willing to start small and achieve consistency.
Thanks for all of your good advice.
Gracias Niall
I am learning so much from your articles.
Buena suerte!!
Really cool.
Got a question that being a beginner like me i know a person who does the 1hr and 4hr charts for a living. Why do you believe its the daily chart that works and not the others.
thank u very much Mr niall,for Ur good work and serving as a source of inspiration to we the newbies,once again only god can reward.
Another great article Nial. A responsible trader should not consider trading full time with less than $80-$100k available in his/her trading account. Anyone who suggests otherwise is selling you pipe dreams. In addition, your life style should not be adversely impacted upon if you suffered say a 50% draw down during the early weeks/months of your trading journey. If our trading capital is $100k, and we risk 1% on a each trade with a min of 2:1 (Reward:Risk) on each trade, a full time trader only needs 1 winning trade per week to make +/- $8k/month. However, trading conditions in recent weeks are a great example where trend traders have often had to sit on the side lines; hence you need to be able to live/survive under all market conditions. As Nial suggests, the only thing that we have control over is ourselves and the application of a ‘tried and tested’ strategy, therefore we need to focus on process and not profit. By applying structure and dicipline into your trading day, the profits certainly follow. Happy trading folk
Thank you for a reallistic and avesome article. Keep writing
Sinceresly
Cubano
Thanks Niall ,
With your strategy i have made 100 % just in 2 week.
God bless you always.
Thanks Nial for super advice.
Cheers
Appreciate the advice, Nial. Overtrading can be a difficult temptation to resist, and the sober approach you recommend is a great reminder.
Great article, gained a lot of knowledge from it and hope it improves my trading
Record your trades! Absolutely agree with you on this one. My trading chart is much cleaner than my trading log “journal/report/….”. Great Job Nial. Following your tweets for your new articles. many thanks.
insightful article,you show great interest in us new traders
thank you.
Millions of thank you for your sharing idea. Its great work Nial in this world for them who are blind and try to get stick for walk to forward being successful trader.
Thanks for the great article..it is giving hope that we may make living and be good. you are great nial
100% agree and don’t be greedy with your trades bring stops up or down accordingly.
Today article is very important to me,very clear and educative.thanks very much
Whenever anyone asks me how to trade I always answer “Go see this guy and listen to what he says”.
No prizes for guessing I’m pointing them to Nial Fuller.
Thanks Nial. I have made all the mistakes you discuss in all of your articles. I quit once for over a year because I got so frustrated. However, after reading your information it ignited a renewed interest in giving it another go. I am still working on getting there, but the way you put togehter the logistics, psychology, emotional issues into simple to understand terms, helps me identify my mistakes which allows me to work on them so I can improve. Nothing like that anywhere else I have found so far. Most just throw technical stuff at you. Excellent mentoring. Glad I found you. Thanks.
Great advice, Nial! No pie-in-the-sky immediate wealth promises, rather a realistic outline of how to be a successful trader.
Recently, I made two profitable practice trades on the EURUSD and GBPUSD. How did I do it? I followed Nial’s advice.
I WAITED for the right price-action setup which took over a week. (When I started trading 4 years ago, I never had the patience to do this!) This takes SELF-DISCIPLINE and automatically prevents you from OVER-TRADING if you have to WAIT.
As far as I can see, there is no other way for long-term success as a trader than the method taught by Nial.
WAITING = SUCCESS.
Thanks very much for the very useful informations , your lessons are always great , one of the best out there
Sincere regards …..
Again and again – THANKS! Larry
Hi Nial
Thanks again is a very honest and striaght article. These articles you send us are very valuable and important to me. Please keep them coming.
Thanks for all your support
Rez
Hi Nial!
thank you so much for this article. I have not traded forex for a year now but have established a business over the year to fund my account. I am comitting to starting back in trading and with your approach that you mention in this article it makes it simple and easy to follow approach. Thank you and looking forward to working with you and the community here to trade the markets.
Thanks again!
Thank you for the article Nial, it was great. However, I believe it would be more informative if you could give an estimate of a range of capital required that a person would need based upon taking medium to low risk to make $5,000 per month, $10,000 per month. Is a 10% per month return too aggressive or is this realistic? What percentage range should a prudent trader be risking on a trade? I have seen at other sites estimates of 1%-5%. This would of course be based upon yours (and others you know) professional,personal experiences. I realize that everybody’s trading experiences would be different. But there must be a range of criteria that would be possible for you to estimate. The article is very nebulous on this point. By providing this information it would give your members a more realistic view of what to expect. To say a ‘decent amount of money, really doesn’t say too much. What is decent for me may not be decent for you. BTW, I know of no other site that has done this.
I don’t mean to be too critical. You provide a great service. I am a member. You have answered all of my emails and I thank you for that. I just think that an attempt to clarify this a bit would be of great service to us all, since this is a central issue for anyone contemplating trading for a living.
Thanks for your great support..thats really a great post..
My best regards
Hi Nial
Very encouraging words for me. I use your articles as a check list for my career transition to part time trader. Personally I have found the members forum a wealth of knowledge and learning opportunities. My trading plan is starting to come together.
Thanks again, have an awesome day.
Steve
Nial, I must say, you have quite a talent for writing.. Maybe you can consider writing a book on PA and trading psychology one day.. Im sure it will be a hit. At least i know I would buy a copy :)
Great Artical Nial. Its truly been a pleasure discovering you and your work. Changed my life. Thank You.
Hi Nial,a big thank you this makes alot of sense to me.Such articles always put me on the right track.Keep it up.
Another great article! It’s always great to hear that hard work and discipline can lead to success. Keep publishing these great articles!!
Thanks for the timely and yet realistic advice again! Cheers!
Nial, I appreciate the way you have been teaching forex market in all sincerity and honesty. That’s why I feel safe to stick to your advise. Thank you.
Good information Nial.
Thanks for the help!
Another great article Nial, just to remind us starters, to take it easy, calm, you can really make a living from trading forex but is not tomorrow, it take is natural path with Nial lessons can be a little more easy…
It’s fine and no doubt could lead the readers towards new path of business world.
Right on the money, Nial…
PA on the higher TF’s is the edge…
Thanks much for sharing your expertise and insight so freely…
I look forward to becoming a member in your trading community in the near future.
Enjoy the day…
Small capital make it difficult do trade higher time frames. What advise would give when you start with small capital?
Antonio
Yes , I like Daily chart.
Hi Nial,
Hope you are well. Another fantastic article, thank you so much for eveything you do.
Thank you for all your help
Thanks and Regards
Gurpal
Thank u very much for all your educational articles. I am a better trader today partly because of the concepts that I have geaned from your free lessons. Keep up the good work!!If only forex traders can realise that forex is a game of probability, and that there is no holy grail anywhere, and take to heart many of the lessons that u teach, there would be less frown and more joy on the face of forex traders today!!Keep up with the good lessons, just as u have said, it is up to us to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I am a long time putting these puzzle pieces together!!
I trade already two years, but that frankness and sincerity I never heard before…and that Secret – Simpel price action…avesome, tnx Nial !
Another fabulous article into becoming a trader.
I still need to perfect my entry and stick to the trade.
Thank you for all your support and guidance,
Filopastry
Thanks for this article Nial,I moved to the 4hr charts much too soon and haven’t had much success.This is because I haven’t mastered the daily charts and all the other aspects you teach in your lessons.I wanted to make money in a hurry and as you state in your article it is important to focus on beoming a good and consistent trader first of all.This is a great wake up lesson for me because I need to get back on track,thanks.
Hi Nial!
As always a very straight to the point and easy to understand article. I guess this is the ultimate dream of every trader – which is to trade for a living – so thanks a lot for writing this article and sharing your experience.
Thanks a lot Bro, your article is so cool, gimme some ideas to become good trader. keepup a good work…
Thanks Nial a great article. For the past week I have been saying to myself I’ve got to be like a sniper and be patient.
Regards
Steve
Wonderful article and a very useful one too for a beginner like me.
Keep writing.
Regards
Thanks Nial. Trade for living is my target to achieve. My primary plan is to make profit between 7 to 10 % of my balance each month.Consistently.. Its not to much if I take my basic account. But in long run, if I will make it… The door will be open…
Great article, an eye opening for most of traders…
Hi Nial – Thanks for the article. You have done a great job with this subject and it is a very timely subject for me.
another very good article with some very sound and true advice, i always look forward to Nialls articles please keep them coming
tino
Thank you Nial!!!
I am testing your price action system using daily chart for months.
It seems pretty good, but I need more time to become more discipline.
Thanks for the excellent article !!
Regards
You the Man Niles! GREAT Article!
Nial, an excellent article, makes a lot of sense.
Thanks
THE ARTICLE IS EDUCATIVE TO NEWBITE LIKE ME.YOU A GREAT TEACHER.
You’re my mentor in the forex world man.This is another excellent article.THANNKs.
This guy is something else! Easy to understand, genuine in his approach and what he says makes so much sense (in a market full of non-sense). He gets a full house score from me.
Hi!
Excellent article!!!
Best Regards!
Nial,
You are the best teacher and mentor I’ve ever met! Your course and lessons are priceless especially for beginners who consistently are loosing money in the “easy money forex world”.
Thanks for another very good article!
Michal
Great article as usual Nial. Keep up the good work man!
God bless you brother!