Comments on: 15 year old want to trade Forex?

By: msc

msc — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:15:42 +0000

At your age, you’re really better off studying and trading demo accounts until you have a few years of experience under your belt.

Forex trading can be a great career if you have a talent for it, but it’s also very dangerous. The emotional forces that take hold of you are extremely powerful, and if you start trading live, get on a winning streak, get greedy, and then start losing, you could lose everything. People have been driven to suicide that way.

I don’t want to discourage you at all, but you need to understand what’s at stake. You have time to become a very well-respected and successful trader and/or money manager if you put your education first.

Best of luck!

By: Randomname83

Randomname83 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:15:42 +0000

You cannot. No broker will allow you to trade prior to 18. Why? Legal reasons. Not to mention any broker that does let you trade could face penalties/loss of license etc.

Since you are 15 and want to make money, I am going to assume you are a pretty smart kid. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but there are no gaurantees in investing. Trading can be dangerous (especially forex trading) and just because your demo account is making money now does not mean it will keep making money.

Your best bet would be to convince your parents to open an account with a small amount of cash and show them how you can increase it. I was handling my parents retirement accounts by the time I was 22 because I had slowly shown them that I had a talent for investing (passion might be more accurate).

Good luck.

By: Grimes

Grimes — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:15:42 +0000

It’s great to see more and more young people getting interested in the markets and judging by your risk tolerance at such a young age, you will probably do very well in the future.
I have been an investor for years (equities not forex) but I know plenty of people who have been burned badly in the forex markets. Many will agree that currency markets are the most difficult to predict because of the vast number of factors that influence these markets. Be sure you have a very good understanding of economics and the factors that affect currency movements, do not rely solely on an EA – even though many of these models are excellent.
I’ve seen firsthand people who traded equity systems on software such as metastock get absolutely crushed when the markets go off the rails and traditional signals lose relevance.
Lastly, the extreme leverage utilized in advanced forex trading (common is 400/1) makes it even more dangerous. Remember that brokers often make their money betting against the highly leveraged positions of investors because these more often than not move against you.

Keep in mind that if all EA’s worked consistently, pretty much everyone would be raking in money hand over fist. I defnitely don’t want to discourage you, just make sure you fully understand the risks involved. It’s a totally different ballgame when real money is on the line.

By: Kevin S

Kevin S — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:15:42 +0000

Try asking your parents to open an account for you and throw in like $50 or so (I’m guessing you’re aware that forex commissions are spread-based, so if you actually – big if – can double your money per month than $50 will be fine).

Also do some research and show your parents some professional trading jobs so they know it’s legit, and also tell them past returns are a top requisite (near the value of education). Wilmott.com is a good place to start, but also show jobs at investment banks like JPMorgan.

As for trading – I don’t know how experienced you are, but don’t rush things and if you are good you won’t need to risk a lot of money to make a ton of money over time.

Also, keep track of your returns so you can show employers in the future. I keep track of all my trades in a spreadsheet.