Welcome! So you want to start your trading career?
Do you think you’ve got what it takes to make it in the stock market?
Probably you can’t wait to get started buying stocks on tips that you’ve heard from friends.
But let’s take a step back for a moment.
When you keep the tips below in mind you’ll increase the odds of actually succeeding.
And more important not having to move back in with your parents after losing all your money.
Why do you want to start a trading career?
Were you attracted by the fortunes that are made by the big guys in the stock market? Or by the appealing pictures of successful independent traders in there Ferrari’s and Lamborghinis.
Maybe you’re inspired by all the world traveling traders that show all the freedom it can bring you?
Sure we all want those things in our lives.
Or are you one of the few that are really interested in the mechanism of the stock market? And want to learn how you can use that to your advantage to improve the quality of your life?
Maybe you don’t like traveling and you don’t need a supercar. Maybe all you look for is escaping your 9-to-5 job and become independent.
Let me tell already tell you that if you fit in the last category you’ve got the best chances of succeeding.
But first, what is the best way to start your trading career? And make sure you can someday really have all those things.
01. The first thing you need to do
Don’t start trading at all!
Just give up the idea you want to become a trader. There are so many reasons why it is better to start looking for another career path.
But isn’t it true there is much money to be made on the stock market? And that a lot of successful traders want to share their knowledge with me?
Isn’t one of the great things about trading that you don’t need a particular formal education?
Yes. those are all true.
But to be honest: you will probably never going to be one of the successful traders.
You might be able to make some money in the stock market every now and then.
But to become successful in trading you need to work hard. And not just hard hard. but really extremely hard.
You need to put in a lot of your time to understand the stock market.
And when you think you understand it all you still need to learn how to apply it as well.
It will cost you a lot of hard work.
And for most of us traders a lot of learning money too.
02. The market is against you
The odds of you succeeding in trading are against you. Not in a small favor.
Research shows that 90% of traders fail.
That is completely blowing up their account.
From the other 10% there is only 2-3 % that is able to make money from trading. The others are just making enough to stay in the game for a longer time.
Now take a moment to think about all the successful traders that offer their expertise online.
What’s in it for them?
Just an extra paycheck? Or is it the most stable paycheck they can get with their trading experience.
A steady monthly income with trading will never be guaranteed. It will always depend on your own actions.
And let’s say the online gurus really make enough money trading and do want to share that with you.
Why do they ask those (sometimes) insane amounts of money for their courses. Most courses are not even worth a tenth of what they cost.
If they really only wanted to help you succeed they’d create a course and share it for free with everybody that wants to learn.
If you’ve made it through the first part at least you’re determined and don’t give up too easily. And that’s a good thing.
Now let’s start with the things that are important to do when you still want to start trading.
03. Finding the right strategy
Off course you should start to learn about the overall stock market.
You don’t need to become an expert in every area, but it is important to at least know that they exist. And for the most things it is best to know some basics.
For the area you’re going to make your expertise you should learn everything there is to know about it.
There are a lot of options for you if you want to trade the stock market.
You can choose to go for stocks, commodities, currencies or any of the other possible areas out there.
Each of the markets have their differences. And on some points they’ll overlap each other as well.
On every possible corner of the market there are also a lot of different strategies. Not every strategy has the same winning chances as the other.
But there are a lot of ways to become profitable in any part of the stock market. You just need to learn how to do that.
04. Don’t try to find the holy grail of trading
When you start your journey on the stock market you can (and probably will be) overwhelmed by a lot of things.
The wide choices of markets and strategies is one of those things that can seem to much to handle at first.
In the beginning you’ll want to go with anything that looks like the holy grail.
You’ll go from trading forex to wanting to find the next penny stock that will become a billion dollar company.
With stocks you’re going to start with trading short term into holding stock longer and wanting to invest in solid companies.
So instead of being all over the place trying to find the holy grail of trading, you need to start focusing.
Start doing your research on the different types of markets and strategies. Learn about what the pro’s and con’s are of each market.
Decide what to focus on because that is the best fit for you.
05. Study everything there is to know
After choosing a specific part of the stock market to focus on you also need to find a strategy that you’re going to learn.
As said before, in every part of the market there are several proven strategies that can make you money.
You don’t have to invent the wheel again yourself. Find out what successful strategies are out there and pick the one that you feel the best about.
That I feel the best about? Are your feelings important in making this decision?
Yes off course. You’ll have to put in so much time and effort to learn everything there is. You can only do that if your feelings say that it is what you want to spend the majority of your time on.
When you’ve found what your area of expertise in the market will be start with learning all about it.
Read as much as you can to learn every detail. Find what books have been written about your new area of expertise.
Find the best blogs and traders in your chosen niche. Learn from the best and do your homework.
06. Learn about risk management
The next thing to learn about when starting your trading career is risk management.
When you don’t know how to manage your money you can blow up your account even if you win 90% of your trades.
If the 90% of your trades only make you a small profit you can easily wipe them out by the 10% of losing trades.
In fact all you need is really one terrible trade to kill your account.
But when you know how to handle your risk while trading you’ll be able to become profitable.
And yes, it is even possible to become profitable when you lose 90% of your trades.
Just manage your trades and make sure you only lose a small amount each time. And have the winning trades making you enough profit to outweigh your losses.
Start learning about how to use stop losses. How to determine your ideal position size for each trade. And how to plan your trades so the risk of losing money is as low as possible.
07. Should you start with paper trading?
When you’ve learned everything there is in your chosen niche of the stock market it is time to get your feet wet.
You can start by setting up an account at the broker that you’ve chosen. Fund it and get your money in the market.
Some traders say that it is best to learn with real money because it involves your emotions as well.
We believe the best option is to start your trading career with a demo account.
Several brokers offer a demo account where your can trade the markets with fake money.
You get an account with a certain amount of money on it and you can trade the real markets from that point.
By starting to trade with a demo account you can start applying everything you’ve learned without instantly losing your savings.
But you’ve studied so hard, so you’re going to be profitable from the beginning? Do you really believe that yourself?
Most of the traders fail in becoming profitable over the long run. Almost 90% of traders only lose money.
From the other 10% almost 7% is only able to break even. Meaning that they don’t lose their money, but also don’t make any money. For them it is just a hobby.
The remaining 3% are traders that have managed to become profitable.
The odds of being profitable are against you. So don’t blow up your account in the early learning stage.
08. Don’t get to emotional, yet
It is true that it is much harder to trade with real money because your emotions are involved in the game.
But when you can’t trade profitable with fake money, you’re certainly not going to do it with real money.
Learn to apply your trading strategy in your demo account and make some money there.
When you’ve found your edge in the market and are consistently profitable in your paper trading account, it is the time to start trading some real money.
Finally you’re really getting started in your trading career.
Now You Can Start Your Trading Career
When you’ve made it through all the steps above you’re in the right position to really get started in with your trading career.
Everything up to now has been your school of trading.
Only when you were able to grow your paper trading account in a consistent way you can start thinking about trading with real money.
To make money consistently in your demo account you’ve got to be able to apply your chosen strategy.
Also you’ve got the position sizing of your trades and the risk management under control.
And it will all not perfected yet, but at least it is good enough to prevent you from blowing up your account in a couple of trades.
Now you can get started trading the stock market and try to become one of the few profitable traders.
Take a look at my Trade & Grow Rich course where you can work together with me and kickstart your trading career!
