Currency trading is one of the most exciting ventures anyone can engage in. This is largely due to the fx exchange market being the largest market in the world with a daily turnover of over four trillion dollars per day!

Unfortunately, most people get into the market only to suffer big losses in the first few weeks and give up soon after.

However, there are many success stories in currency trading online and this confirms that forex trading is an ideal investment opportunity.

Therefore, the question is what makes a successful trader? What do successful traders do differently compared to those who fail?

Here are some tips you can follow to assure your own success in currency trading online.

Define Your Goals

Before investing any of your hard earned cash in any business venture, it is wise to set definite, practical, and achievable investment goals.

You should define your expectations and the timelines within which you want to achieve those set goals.

Carefully Choose Your Broker

Most traders seem not to realize that their trading success is strongly tied in to the kind of broker they choose and the kind of platform they operate with.

Choosing a good broker is of paramount importance and should be taken very seriously. Careful consideration should be done when assessing the broker’s capabilities, trade history, licenses, and experience.

Just as important, the trader should carefully assess and test the platform offered by the broker to ensure it conforms to the kind of analysis s/he will be performing.

Before engaging the broker, be sure to read all the documentation including all contracts, policy documents, fees listings, and all the fine print.

Be sure to trade on the demo account for a long period of time to test all features and to make sure the platform is suitable for your needs.

For a list of top brokers you can use for your trading, click here.

Develop a Strategy

One thing you should realize is that forex trading is a business and a career, not a game. Therefore, you should take time to develop a good trading strategy that will work for you.

A trading strategy will guide you on making decisions to profitably execute your trades. Once you have developed a forex trading strategy that works well for you, be consistent in following it.

However, the strategy should not be too rigid. It should be adaptive to the highly dynamic foreign exchange market.

Trade Longer Time Frames

Studies show that traders who trade on longer time frames are more successful compared to those who trade on shorter time frames. This is much more obvious when it comes to novice traders.

Another thing to be wary about is using information from charts that are set to analyze different time frames. A weekly chart may indicate a buy signal while the daily chart is indicating a sell signal.

When the trading directions are different, it is better to wait for an opportune moment to enter a trade. Typically, this is when both time frame charts give out the same signals.

Use Your Trade Journal

A good trader will always keep an updated forex trading journal. A successful trader will use the historical data in the trading journal to back-test previous trades and to calculate how reliable the trading strategy used is.

Use your trade journals to calculate your overall profits versus the losses on a regular basis.

Use it to formulate your goals and to develop your trading strategy. Use it to identify which situations led to positive outcomes and which sets of conditions led to negative trade outcomes.

Accept Your Losses and Move On

Most people get crushed when they suffer losses in whatever business investment they decide to venture in.

This is a natural reaction that a serious trader should learn to do away with in order to become successful. Come to accept your losses and view them as a business expense, the cost of learning.

Once you take on that attitude, make sure you gain as much as you can from this “training fee” that your business is paying for you. Study the conditions and circumstances that led to your loss and avoid repeating them in future trades.

Educate Yourself

Trading in the forex market is as much an art as it is a science. To be successful, you cannot just wing it and hope to make consistent profits though it is possible to get lucky occasionally.

Before investing in the fx exchange market, you need to learn how to conduct fundamental and technical analysis, you need to learn how to read price charts, and you need to learn how to translate what each indicator you will be using means to your trade.

You have to teach yourself the forex terminology, learn the history, study the market’s volatility, and study various trading strategies.

This website, https://www.forextradingbig.com/, is dedicated at providing you with free and competent forex education so that you can pursue your dreams hassle-free.

Rein In Your Emotions

When it comes to currency trading, you should realize from the outset that this is a business, not a personal engagement. Do not give in to feelings of greed. This will lead to poor decision-making such as over trading.

Do not panic when you suffer losses, this will only serve to increase your losses and lead to frustration.

One thing you should realize about the forex market is that it is filled with traders who will profit from your losses. Others will outright try to cheat and con you.

Therefore, this is not a market for the weak-hearted. The good news is that there are lots of honest traders and brokers too and there is a lot of information online which, if you do your research well, will keep you away from the dishonest ones. If you ever fall victim to the dishonest ones, do not give up. Be more careful next time and do your homework.

Summary

The figures sometimes may be very discouraging for new traders. About 90% of novice traders suffer heavy losses within the first six months of trading and eventually stop trading altogether.

About 7% continue trading with varying degrees of success, mostly suffering as many losses as they earn profits in equal measure.

But there is that 3% who go on to become highly successful traders. These are the ones who have learnt to be methodical in their trades and have learnt to put their emotions in check. There are many other things that make one a successful forex trader and some of the basic ones are outlined above.