Making Money in Forex : Trade Like a Pro without Giving Up Your Day Job

When I was introduced to trading, the Internet was young, charts connected directly to data providers via dial-up modem, and trades were placed over the telephone.

I met a currency futures trader who introduced me to the market and taught me some basic tech-nical analysis techniques, and I was hooked. I decided to focus on off-exchange spot currency trading versus futures for reasons I’ll discuss in Chapter 1.

In those days, $100,000 lots and account minimums created aproblem for me. I was 17 years old, just graduating high school, and I was broke. I needed to raise trading capital, so I did what any technology-savvy high school graduate did during the Internet boom: I joined the revolution. I began trading while I worked full-time and sought help from my local book store.

I found a plethora of books focused on day trading but noth- ing that helped me navigate the 24-hour currency market around my day job. These books were written by people who claimed to trade full-time or Wall Street types who spent their entire day glued to a chart.

Their meth- ods depended on the volatility offered by active trading sessions and were completely useless to me. I lived in the Central Time Zone, so I was asleep while London traded and at work while New York traded. I tried staying up late and getting up early, and I even tried trading via a mobile device, but ultimately short-term trading wasn’t a sustainable solution for me.

Day trading may have sex appeal—promising Learjets, Lamborghinis, and lim- ited work weeks—but day trading isn’t an option for someone who is stuck in a staff meeting when the market is roaring.