Am I Ready to Trade Live?

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John Forman - The Essentials of Trading author

How do I know that I am ready to trade forex live?

This, I’m sure, is a question which goes through the mind of just about anyone who starts off learning about trading and does their recommended work through demo trading. At some point you do have to make the jump to real money trading. It’s just a question of when.

As you may be aware, I’m a major proponent of getting one’s feet wet in real trading as early in one’s developmental process as possible (see Trade real money, not paper money). I’m not saying one should necessarily just jump into to live trading right away, just that some exposure early on can accelerate the learning process.

Today’s question, though, is more along the lines of “How do I know when I’ve learned what I need to know?” Notice I didn’t imply or suggest that the individual has learned everything there is to know.  That’s not an obtainable goal, and anyone attempting to reach it before they start trading will never begin. I’ve been in the markets for about 20 years now, and while I know more about them than the average person, I will never know everything. In fact, seemingly on a daily basis I am reminded that there’s loads of stuff I know nothing about. It’s a great way to stay humble.

But let me return to the basic thrust of the question. You are ready to trade live when you have a thoroughly tested trading system or methodology (whatever you want to call it) that provides you the edge you need to produce long-run results and you are able to stick to it. Believe me, it’s the latter part which is the harder one in most cases.

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