Here I am going to cover forex training and give you a story that inspired me to trade over 20 years ago and it covers a famous experiment that took place in 1983 where legendary trader Richard Dennis took a group of novice traders and trained them to trade with spectacular results...

The group of traders were known as "the turtles" and the only thing this group had in common was:

They had no experience of trading financial markets.

They were various ages, various levels of intelligence, both men and women and the group consisted of diverse occupations:

- A boy fresh from school

- A security Guard

- An actor

- A female auditor

- A couple of professional card players

To name but a few of the group.

The purpose of the experiment was to prove that anyone could learn to trade and trading was not a god given gift.

The results were spectacular:

This group went on to become some of the most famous traders ever and made Dennis $100 million in just 4 years.

So what can you learn?

The first thing is obviously anyone can learn to trade financial markets - if they get the right education. It doesn't take long to learn to trade, as Dennis proved - just 14 days.

You maybe thinking - Well if that's the case why do 95% of forex traders lose all their money?

The answer to this question is covered in the rest of this article.

The first point is trading can be learned by anyone with a desire to succeed and a willingness to learn - but in most instances, traders either get the wrong forex education, or they under estimate the importance of mindset.

You can read about the turtles and see the system was essentially a trend following breakout system - nothing complicated and the fact they learned it in 14 days proves the point.

Forex trading success however does not rely just on method - it relies just as much if not more so, on mindset.

You need confidence and discipline to trade and if you don't have these traits then you have no method at all - as you will be unable to apply it.

Dennis didn't just tell them to follow his advice, he taught them to understand what they were doing, so they could have confidence in the trading system taught, to follow it with discipline.

This is where most traders go wrong.

They think that they can follow someone else and succeed - but you can't, you have to learn the basics and then take responsibility for your actions.

If you think trading with discipline while you are taking loss after loss (and all forex trading systems do) think again - it's hard to stay on course. For the importance of mindset in forex trading try reading - "The Disciplined Trader" by Mark Douglas, an excellent book all traders should read novice or pro.

So could you become as successful as the turtles?

Probably not, life simply isn't like that - but I Will say one thing:

There is nothing to stop you achieving currency trading success - Everything about trading can be learned and that's a fact. There are no secrets to successful trading, it's all about you creating a framework to survive, in the anarchy that is the forex markets and trade the truth.

The turtle experiment inspired me to trade and I hope it inspires you. If you want to read more about it check out our articles and the following books:

Way of The Turtle - Curtis Faith

One of the most successful turtles, tells you everything you need to know about the methods and mindset the traders had to adopt to succeed.

Market Wizards - Jack Schwager (Edit)

You get a number of great articles, including one on how and why the turtle experiment came about. One of the top selling investment books of all times and with good reason - excellent.

So there you have it - an inspiration for your own forex training hopefully!

Simply have a willingness to learn, get the right forex education and you never know how successful your forex training could make you - Good Luck!

Big money is made trend following in forex markets however most traders are reluctant to do it and instead try and trade for small profits - but it's a fact the big profits are made following the longer term trends. So why don't traders want to follow the big trends? There two main reasons...

They think they can make more money day trading and fall for the huge industry that has grown up selling short term day trading and scalping systems.

All these systems come with simulated track records and all will lose you money.

Why?

It's obvious - you can't predict what millions of forex traders are going to do in a few hours - all short term volatility is random and if you try and predict what will happen, you will lose.

The second reason is more complex.

It comes down to the fact that most traders can't accept big gains!

This may sound a bit of a paradox, as all traders are in forex to make money - but they have problems accepting profits, here's why:

Its obvious if you look at a chart that there are long term trends that last for months or even years. This is simply because they reflect the economic cycle of the country they represent and economic cycles last for these periods.

Now if you can lock into and hold these trends, you can make huge profits but most traders don't have the discipline to do so.

Why?

Because markets are volatile and a typical scenario unfolds in the following way.

A forex trader enters a trade and is pleased to get a profit but the bigger the profit becomes, the more tempted he is to take it. Swings in equity start to eat into his open equity and eventually his nerves get the better of him and he snatches a marginal profit - even though he knows the trend will probably continue.

What happens next?

The trend carries on piling up $10, $20,000 or more and he's not in but he knew the trend was going to continue! He just didn't have the discipline, or the courage of his conviction.

There is no doubt that if you lock into the big trends you can make huge profits.

I know traders who trade less than once a month but make triple digit gains, holding positions for weeks or months.

They know that you have to sit through short term equity dips - but if you have the right forex trend following system that doesn't matter - you have your eyes on the bigger prize of mega profits.

Big profits are made trend following the currencies but very few traders have the confidence and discipline to do it, although it's the best way to trade and can make you huge profits longer term.

Big profits are there to be made trend following forex longer term so forget short term trading and look longer term!

Human nature is constant and humans determine the price in any market, therefore if you know the law of human nature you have a scientific theory you can apply, to predict prices and make big profits. Let's look at some forex trading systems based on scientific movement.

There are numerous theories that are said to be scientific and three of the most common are Fibonacci, Elliot Wave and WD Gann. They all claim to be able to predict forex prices in advance but how successful are they?

The problem with these theories is they are all flawed and none of the above made any profits with the theories and they developed them! - So why don't they work?

Because while human nature is constant, it's not predictable with scientific accuracy.

Humans are not creatures of logic - but creatures of emotion and that means there is no formula that can be applied to this vast, diverse group that will work.

This is actually pretty obvious as if there were a scientific theory of market movement that worked all the time, we would all know the price in advance and there would be no market as of course we would all know the price in advance!

Prices actually move because we are unpredictable and this is the basis of any free market.

A BETTER WAY TO MAKE FOREX PROFITS

If you try and predict forex prices ( not just with a scientific theory) you are destined to lose anyway because prediction is really another word for hoping and guessing and that won't get you very far in life and especially not in forex trading!

You can't predict so don't even try, as your predictions will end up being as accurate as your horoscope.

A better way to trade is to hit high odds set ups, in fact - it's the only way to trade.

You are playing a game of odds not certainties - but that doesn't mean you can't make big profits, you can and the rewards are enormous.

Keep in mind the following fact when you trade forex:

All prices are pushed to far up or down by human emotion and then return to fair value. If you can spot and act on these price spikes, you can make huge profits and there easy to spot on a forex chart. You simply wait until the price spikes and then look for a waning of momentum and hit your trading signal - in the opposite direction.

This happens time and time again in forex markets (or any market for that matter), these price spikes fade and if you can catch them you have great profit potential with low risk.

Once a trend does develop you trade with it - but there are always price spikes along the way (within trends) for swing trading or (at the end of trends) for long term trend followers.

Forex trading has not changed over the years.

Despite the vast amount of progress we have made in science in other areas of life forex trading remains an odds game where the appliance of science won't help you - but simply trading the odds will and can lead you to currency trading success.