Most people become acquainted with forex trading whilst they are still in full time employment. They may be looking to make some extra money, or they may be looking for a new career in a different industry or a job with more freedom. However it should be pointed out that there is a massive difference between part time forex trading and full time forex trading.
When you are trading the markets part time, either whilst you are working in your day to day job or in your spare time or days off, there is no pressure to make money. You will probably open an account with a few hundred dollars and start trying to make money with different trading systems, safe in the knowledge that you still have a decent wage coming in.
However when you are trading the markets full time, you rely on these profits in order to live because they need to cover your rent or mortgage payments, as well as all your expenses and day to day costs. If you have a few losing weeks, then you may well struggle to pay the bills.
This puts enormous pressure on you because you have to make money. So you may well find that it starts to affect your trading because you may have a decent trading system in place, but you keep on taking impulsive trades in order to hit your profit targets. Ideally you should stick to your system at all times even during the occasional losing run, but I fully understand how hard this can be when you need to make money every week in order to pay your bills and live your life.
It is also the case that because forex trading from home can be quite boring because you are sat watching your computer for hours on end, and there may be times when you day trade the markets just for a bit of excitement. However the trouble is that short term trading can be an absolute killer if you don’t have a top notch system in place with good money management rules in place, so this can make life difficult for you as well.
It should also be pointed out that there can be pressures put upon you from both your family and your friends. Outsiders often assume that you are making lots of money if you can afford to quit your job and trade the markets from home. So if you are making steady but unspectacular profits, it can be all too easy to start upping the stakes in order to bring in the big profits. Unfortunately this often leads to disaster.
When you add in the extra pressure of knowing that you may have to go and get a job again if you are not successful, it is easy to see why full time forex trading is so difficult. There are so many pressures and you will generally find that only a small group of people are still trading the currency markets full time several years after they first started.