From Newbie to Veteran: Journey of a Trader |
I have been trading currencies for a few years now with some success and some failures. I have spent countless hours and large sums of money trying to educate myself in order to gain an edge. This blog is about the journey from a beginner to a pro trader. |
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Should you trade or should you invest?
This is difficult to answer because it all depends on the investor/trader. Trading and investing both work on the following premise: A particular security will either increase in value or decrease in value within “X” amount of time for the a number of reasons.
Knowing “X” will tell you if you are a trader or an investor. If you think “X” will occur in a very short time frame (minutes, hour or days), you should consider yourself a trader. If you think “X” will occur in a longer time frame (weeks, months, years), you should consider yourself an investor.
The above two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. A trader can be an investor and an investor can execute a few trades. The key is to know prior to making the trade. Personally, I consider myself a trader. I do not think I have the patience nor the tolerance to wait weeks or months to see if a trade is going my way. I usually trade on a 5 minute time frame and my average trade lasts about 7 minutes. On rare occasions I will enter a trade that I expect to last for hours.
Whether or not you consider yourself a trader or an investor is not that important. What is important is how you approach each decision you make and not confuse the two.
