Many of us have heard the term “making money on Forex”, and most affiliate sites say it’s easy as pie - just put in at least $500 (or $50 for micro-Forex) and you’ll be making thousands of dollars in no time. While that does have some truth, it’s not really that easy.

There’s this famous expression that came from a Poker guru:

“1 day in poker consists of 90% luck and 10% skill
1 year in poker consists of 90% skill and 10% luck”

This can also be applied to Forex. While I - as a newbie Forex player - have managed to make $4k in my first week, I eventually lost all that cash because I started thinking “well, hey, this is just TOO easy!” and just became too ignorant.

I’d say that the Poker expression is the number 2 rule of Forex, with the first being very simple:

DON’T PLAY IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE!

This is something the affiliates just don’t get - they promise you huge wealth with no risk, all you have to do is put your savings to great risk and presto. This is possible though, like 10% possible.

What you have to learn is that money makes money - and more money makes even more money. This is exactly why you shouldn’t get the impression that if you invest $500 you’ll be getting thousands in return. Why do you think banks offer you savings accounts at the rate of a max of 10%/year? If they were making 1,000% per year, that would be ripping off, wouldn’t it?

My personal goal was to establish a strategy that would work for me. For this I opened up a training account with $10k on it, flushed the balance down to $1k and set a target of 10%/week. The markets close every weekend, so setting weekly targets is a good idea. Also you can play at the longer-term exchange rate variations. Of course, there was this temptation once I got the 10% in day 1 to go “MO MONEY!!!!” - but that’s not how strategies work. Once you’ve reached your daily/weekly/monthly target - just sit back, relax and start reading forums/blogs (such as this one) about Forex strategies.

This is the first thing you must do - learn to be patient and not greedy. So for now, open up your first (or not) training account, flush it down to $1k and try to make 10% in a week from it.