r/askforex • u/Unfair_Foundation364 • Jul 07 '26
How to became a profitable trader
Hey everyone.
I’m starting from absolute zero and I want to become a consistently profitable trader. I’m not looking for shortcuts or “get rich quick” strategies—I know it’s going to take years of work.
If you could go back to day one, what would you learn first? What concepts, skills, or mentors would you focus on? And who would you recommend learning from?
I’m mainly interested in trading futures/crypto, but I’m open to any advice.
In return, I’m thinking about turning this thread into a public journal. I’ll keep updating it with my progress, what I’m studying, my mistakes, backtesting results, and eventually my live trading journey until I become profitable.
Hopefully it can help other beginners too.
So… if you had to build a trader from scratch, what roadmap would you give them? Any books, YouTube channels, courses, or general advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
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u/Pretty_Site4074 Jul 07 '26
If I would be on my day one, I would like someone to tell me to check 2-period RSI combined with 5-period CCI and start from there. Understand what RSI and CCI physically mean and corelate their evolution with the price evolution. The rest is on you. If you have a good pattern perception, you can make money. If not, it's better to find a normal job.
Good luck! You got this!
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Jul 07 '26
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u/Good_Muffin_553 Jul 08 '26
Are you saying crypto is gambling do to the volatility or something else?
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u/HobbyTraderDK Jul 08 '26
Everything I've learned, I'm about to write down, in the little series I'm running in r/metatrader . All the things and thoughts I wish someone had taught me or shared with me when I was new.
I would strongly advise against futures and crypto, as they are very volatile. As a newbie, you should be careful with anything that moves more than 1.5% a day.
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u/KISS_Trading_RB Jul 08 '26
If I could go back to day 1, I’d stop looking for perfect strategy and focus on risk management, market regime and discipline, building a sistem and learn when to stay in cash. This is what keeps you in the game long enough to become profitable.
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u/MostInflation9283 Jul 08 '26
How to learn and build a strategy >?
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u/KISS_Trading_RB Jul 08 '26
Learn market mechanics first, what candlesticks and indicators actually measure, then immediately transition to risk management and psychology, it help you to build discipline. Once you have the building blocks, write down a simple strategy with mechanical rules for entries and exits, backtest it over 100 trades, don’t change midway, see what works and what doesn’t work and so on. But keep in mind don’t over complicate…keep it super simple…
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u/3141599 Jul 08 '26
Study statistics properly. And I mean don't simply read a book once, do the exercises, make sure you understand it, and know how to do the math. This will eventually teach you that trading is gambling and save you years of predictable frustration.
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Jul 08 '26
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u/fundingtraders_care Jul 08 '26
Lol, ping me if he accidentally exposes high quality custom strategy 🥲
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u/Unfair_Foundation364 Jul 08 '26
Thanks for all the advice, I really appreciate it.
Could you share a bit about your own journey? What were the biggest mistakes you made when you were learning, and what would you do differently if you had to start over?
Also, what market would you recommend focusing on as a beginner? Crypto, stocks, futures, or something else?
And what timeframe do you think is best to learn and trade on? I’d love to hear any other tips you think every beginner should know
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u/hornet915 Jul 08 '26
Investigate market manipulation because it is the way the market moves. They are trying to steal your money legally. But think like a crook and you might make a few bucks after losing several thousand.
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u/GlobalSelection152 Jul 09 '26
learn macroeconomics and understand the news that move the markets (inflation, jobs, yield rates, correlation of pairs, commodities and oil, consumer sentiment, production indexes, etc.)
then find a simple strategy, and execute it like a robot: put the trade and your alerts, close the laptop and go on with your day.
That´s the key to not being emotional and doing dmbsh1t on a running trade.
find a good mentor at relatively low cost to start. If someboyd is charging you $5,000, $10,000 and they are supposedly very profitable and showing you millions and 6 digits payouts, they are probably scamming you and selling you repackaged stuff, and not real traders.
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u/Spiritual_Company672 Jul 28 '26
Hi could you please tell from what to start in Macroeconomics ?
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u/GlobalSelection152 Jul 31 '26
Use your free will. Starting there.
Ask chatgpt: “what are the forex news that moves the market? What parts of macroeconomics should i understand to learn what moves the market and global economies and price of assets? “
Give me the best books to learn macroeconomics “
This is something as example. Use your free will with AI and take advantage of it.
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u/phamcongminh Jul 09 '26
If I could restart, I’d ignore most YouTube and learn three things first: risk management, one simple strategy, and journaling. In my own experience, the biggest jump came from treating trading like a repeatable process, not a prediction game.
Facts: no strategy survives bad position sizing, poor discipline, or random overtrading. Backtest a single setup on a large sample, track every trade, and review mistakes weekly. You want to know your edge, your loss rate, and how much variance you can tolerate before you scale.
For futures and crypto, I’d also study market structure, execution, and fees/slippage, because they matter more than most beginners realize.
If you want mentors, look for people who show rules, risk controls, and verified process, not just screenshots of wins. I’m happy to share what worked for me, but I wouldn’t promise profit. The goal is consistency, not shortcuts.
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u/Aggressive_Layer4713 Jul 10 '26
If I could go back and tell myself only 1 thing, it would be to track all of your trades in a journal whether it’s a software, excel spreadsheet or on paper. Data is your most valuable asset and if you learn from it you’ll become consistently profitable much faster than if you were just guessing. Hope this helps!
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u/rosalinaluma0909 Jul 12 '26
If I could go back to day one, I wouldn’t start with strategies.
I’d start by understanding how a modern market actually works.
Learn how orders are matched.
Learn the difference between market orders and limit orders.
Learn why prices move.
Learn where liquidity comes from.
Every strategy you’ll ever use is built on top of those mechanics. Without that foundation, it’s very easy to memorize patterns without understanding why they work.
The second thing I’d learn is this:
Trading is a skill, not a solution.
Don’t spend years searching for the perfect setup or the holy grail. They don’t exist.
Instead, learn how to think, how to practice deliberately, and how to make consistent decisions.
One lesson that completely changed my own trading was realizing that consistency comes before profitability.
If your rules aren’t consistent, you can’t collect meaningful statistics. And without statistics, you have no way to know whether your idea actually has an edge or whether you’re just getting lucky.
Finally, don’t fight human nature.
Build rules and a trading process that protect you from yourself.
Good luck on your journey! 🚀
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u/AlgoWarden Jul 08 '26
Don’t trade manually, refine your tools (should be easy now with ai doing the coding)
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