What is it like to be a forex trader?

In which ever capacity you are as a forex trader (i.e., retail, or professional), the currency market provides a high potential for both risk and reward. In turn, forex trading can be both exciting and stressful.

Yes, there are many advertising the luxurious lifestyle that the industry could bring, but it is important to remember that to be successful requires a lot of work, understanding, and there is the potential for loss along the way as well.

A forex trader will spend a good portion of their time reading, researching, analyzing, executing trades as well as record keeping. For continual self-improvement in the trader’s skill set, self-evaluation of success and failures will need to form a regular part of a FX traders’ regime, whether daily, weekly or monthly.

Self-reflection on realized strengths and weakness mean a continued introspection into oneself, requiring enormous amounts of self-discipline.

Another consideration with regards to what its like being a forex trader, is that the forex market opens at 12am Monday (GMT+2) and closes at 12am Saturdays (GMT+2) and trade pretty much continuously through this time. Over this period there will be higher levels of activity at different times of the day (and night) relative to which country exchanges are open and when they are overlapping. This means that forex traders will often need to keep unorthodox hours in terms of there business hours, depending on which currency markets they are trading. This is an important consideration when looking to pursue the FX trading lifestyle as it can affect other aspects of one’s life.