Editor's Blog HK Business Investments

The top 5 mistakes beginners make when trading

Written by Alan Chiu Tsang

A lot of my viewers and friends ask me this question from time to time. Is trading really profitable? My answer is: it all depends on you and on you only. Your biggest enemy is yourself. Once you know that truth, trading can be profitable.

If you want to start trading the right way, here are the top 5 mistakes or myths that beginners make.

1. Trading requires a lot of capital

Wrong! Although you need money to start trading, it is a myth that you need a huge amount of money. I started trading with only 700 yen, which at that time was more or less US$7.00.
If you are looking for trading forex, I would suggest at least US$1,000 to begin with but there are brokers out there that will let you start with only US$100.

2. The trade started to go against me. It is okay, what goes down will eventually go up.

Wrong! This is one of the biggest mistakes that beginners make, if not the biggest. You must have an exit strategy to prevent loss of capital, which can be achieved with an SL (stop loss), etc. If you don’t use a stop loss set on your system, you need to have a mental stop loss or another exit strategy. Otherwise, you will run the risk of losing everything.

3. As long as you learn a good strategy, anyone can learn how to trade.

Wrong! Trading is not for everyone. Anyone can learn a trading strategy, but only a few people will know how to execute it by the end of the day. Trading requires a lot of patience, discipline, and dedication. Not everyone has that.

4. I will just apply for a signal service or a trading social network platform and I will become rich.

Wrong! Signal services never work. They have been around for years and the only ones who benefit from them are the people who run them. The same applies to social network platforms that specialize in trading. If you really want to learn and master trading, you won’t be able to do so by simply copying someone else’s trades.

5. I just saw on a news website that someone from my city became a millionaire by trading binary options. I will do the same!

Wrong! And by the way, this is a scam. Binary options don’t make money. I have been trading by myself for the last 20+ years and I have never met someone who became rich by trading binary options. On the contrary, I have met a lot of people (even some of my close friends) who lost a lot of money by trading them.
Binary options don’t make money. The only ones who make money with binary options are the brokers and the people who advertise binary options brokers and earn money via affiliate programs. Other than those, nobody can make money by trading binary options.

About the author

Alan Chiu Tsang

Alan is a freelancer photographer and author for FutureHandling.com.
He graduated from Hong Kong university in 2005.