Forex trading is a great way to amass wealth and compound your money quickly. Marketing companies and the social media buzz portray forex trading as an easy skill that can be learned in a few days, after which you can make money from the comfort of your home. The reality is that learning to trade the currency market can be extremely challenging and yet highly rewarding. It requires a lot of hard work, patience, and dedication to learn the details of technical analysis, fundamental analysis, and trading psychology. If you’re planning on learning this skill set, keep reading to discover how long it takes to learn forex trading.
How Long it Takes to Learn Forex Trading
The time it takes to learn forex varies. It depends on how you’re learning; whether or not you are enrolled in a trading course. The time taken to learn also depends on what you’re learning; technical analysis, fundamental analysis, trading psychology, psychological resilience, etc. We will discuss all of these to help you understand how long it takes for most traders to learn how to trade.
If you are enrolled in a trading course
Trading courses are lessons offered by professional/seasoned traders who take you through the basic to advanced trading concepts. They help you shorten your learning curve and get enough understanding of the forex concepts you need to know in order to succeed.
If you’re enrolled in a trading course, you will need about 1 year to learn the key aspects of trading. Enrolling in a trading course can give you access to a mentor or course creator who will answer any questions you have and give you advice and guidance. This would help you avoid common mistakes beginner traders make.
If you are not enrolled in a trading course
You can still learn to trade without enrolling in a trading course. It typically takes longer this way, and most traders without mentors learn to trade in 1.5 to 2 years.
There are lots of free resources to learn from; Youtube videos, forex trading websites, and even free courses online. If you don’t want to enroll in a course, then make sure you’re resourceful and find free or paid resources that would help you understand the key forex trading concepts.
Learning Technical Analysis
Technical analysis is often regarded as the easiest aspect of trading. It involves the analysis of the price charts and the use of indicators and technical analysis tools to forecast price movement. There are many indicators and trading theories that can be used to learn technical analysis, and most traders learn this within 3-6 months. However, technical analysis is only a small part of learning to trade forex.
Learning Trading Psychology
Trading psychology refers to a trader’s beliefs and thoughts about the nature of forex trading. Developing strong trading psychology is regarded as the most difficult aspect of learning forex. It involves learning discipline, risk management, hard work, consistent practice, and psychological resilience.
While learning to trade, traders have to overcome the fear of losses and avoid letting the pain of losing money cloud their judgments. This can be extremely difficult to learn, and most traders spend over 1 year developing their trading psychology.
3 Factors to Consider Before You Learn Forex Trading
Your Goal
When trading gets difficult, most traders rely on their goals to keep them motivated. Before learning to trade forex, make sure you have clearly defined your goals and trading ambitions. Setting goals would keep you motivated and strong enough to overcome trying times.
For instance, if your goal is to become financially independent or make an ‘x’ amount of money in several years, you can break this down into smaller milestones. This helps you track your progress as you reach each milestone you’ve set for yourself.
Passion for Trading
Trading forex for profits is great, but forex isn’t the only way to amass wealth. Therefore, it is preferable for your desire to trade to transcend monetary gains and profits. Being passionate about trading involves having enthusiasm for the financial markets in general, which encourages you to study harder than an average trader would.
This passion keeps you focused and prevents trading from becoming a chore. Your genuine interest would push you to study and understand the markets and learn forex trading faster than someone who solely wishes to trade for profits.
Your Schedule
Before learning to trade, you should consider your schedule and ensure you have enough time to learn all you need to know. Professional forex trading is a business – not a chore or a side hustle. Make sure you devote enough time to learning before you choose to become a forex trader.
Define how much time you can commit daily and stay consistent with it. Without consistency, you may lose the little you learn.
Tips on How to Learn Forex Trading Fast
If you’re serious about learning forex trading, here are four tips to help you get started;
Learn a Profitable Strategy
While learning Forex, make sure you learn a profitable trading strategy. New traders often start trading with random indicators and place trades without a rule-based strategy. Trading with a profitable strategy gives you an edge and helps you mitigate your losses over time. You can learn a profitable strategy from a forex trading course. Alternatively, you can create a strategy and verify its profit potential by backtesting.
Use Proper Risk Management
Risk management allows you to maximize the profit potential of your strategy. Using proper risk management ensures that you define your risk before placing trades. As a new trader, you can trade with low risk in order to preserve your capital.
If you don’t manage your risk properly, you may end up losing your capital. This can negatively affect your trading psychology and your will to keep learning to trade. The forex market has times of uncertainty, and in those periods, risk management is the only weapon you have to protect your trades and your capital.
Follow Your Trading Plan
A trading plan is a set of rules that guide your forex trading decisions. The plan contains the details of your trading strategy and the rules that must be met before your trades are executed. This ensures that your trades are executed systematically. A rule-based strategy is like a recipe. It ensures that your trading results are reproducible.
The trading plan keeps you disciplined and focused. It ensures that your trading decisions are objective and not ruled by emotions.
Practice
As a new trader, spend time practicing your strategy and training yourself to recognize trading opportunities in the forex market. Practice helps you build your pattern recognition skills and improve your skills as a trader.
Practice Trading Forex with a Decode Global Demo Account
It is evident that to be a successful forex trader. Although the journey to learning forex trading may seem daunting at first, with enough dedication and time, it can be mastered by anyone. In 2022, we hope to see you join the ranks of successful traders! Have you started practicing yet? Get started today with a free demo account from DecodeFX.