The main reason why I quit FXCM and started on my own was the fact of dealing with such heartbreaking clients. I literally took it home with me and frankly only brokers can reply whether or not the degree of emotions. The biggest part of trading is that anybody can talk tough over the phone, but the typical instance I was calling someone 5 weeks from now at 8:00am EST because they had a margin call.
I will never forget the individual who said to me, "But at 5:30 this morning it was ahead by $1000! Bring it back, bring it back! What can I do? I did my best to calm him down and explain that plain and simple, the market moved 50 pips or so. He was over leveraged, and busted right out. I know to this day he will not understand why he was margin called at 8, when he was ahead at 5am.
The best clients I ever had, I showed a few basic techniques. They
demo traded for a few months and took their time with live money. I remember Mr. Client A, he started with 50k. He asked me what type of account he should start with and what size to trade to get started trading. I said start with a mini and trade 10k per trade, no more than 50k total. With 200:1 leverage, that was only $50 per lot, max $250 in margin. He laughed me off......
Client B, same scenario, listened to advice. Either 1, lasted longer than client A, didn't make much, but most importantly didn't lose much. Or 2 did very very well after a few months of baby steps.
All the heartbreakers I remember them to this day.
The common thing was some guy started giving me this 10 min SOB story that darn near came close to a Country Western Song. After the song ended, what did ask me? SHOULD I TRADE? Well after hearing this long drawn out SOB story I said NO. What did he ask me in return?
WHY DO YOU THINK I SHOULD NOT TRADE?
Some people will just not get it.
My competive advantage in general going forward in all my efforts is simply having been there and done that. Most professional traders are only Pro for a few years, they go back to a business, and transition back and forth.
I am a profitable trader because I have steady income from other sources. Whether it is real estate or other business. Dads are a great help too! They know more than we may think, just not in terms of trading. Thats finally something I have over dad!
I have seen way too many people blow up too fast because they have too much expectations. Trading for a living is realistic; however, having said that, it is only less than 1% of all traders out there. Great additional income, yes, but most people have never been in my shoes of trading for a living and paying bills on it. To be quite frank, there is only 1 GREAT day trade a week. Doing a moderate aggressive strategy, and I am out in a few minutes.
If you are interested in more, I will give you one clue, I only trade the AUD or NZD. Why do I do that? Everybody is trading the EUR and GBP!!!! Indeed they are, nobody is even watching the AUD or NZD, thats why!
I saw one guy turn 5000 into 30,000 in 1 month, but to my recolection, that is the biggest winner. After 1 month of the nice return, he pulled out all his money. I looked through his account and that was very very interesting. This will go into my memiors.
Happy Trading to all, Patience young traders, your day will soon be among us.
