If you’re a regular Forex trader you’ve probably spent a lot of time visiting various Forex forums and Facebook groups. That’s understandable because trading can be quite a lonely profession, but although they can be beneficial, they can also have an adverse affect on your profits.
What Are The Benefits Of Forex Forums and Facebook Groups?
Let’s start first of all by discussing the benefits of visiting Forex forums and Facebook groups.
Firstly, if you are an inexperienced or part-time Forex trader and are looking for profitable trading ideas and systems then they can be every useful. You can often pick the minds of experienced traders and understand what types of technical indicators they use in the forex market and how they make their profits.
Another benefit, as I’ve already mentioned is that you can alleviate some of the daily boredom and loneliness that comes from being a Forex trader working from home. Lack of social interaction is one of the major drawbacks to working from home so Forex forums are great for chatting to other like-minded people, even if it is over the internet.
What Are The Downsides Of Forex Forums and Facebook Groups?
The downsides to Forex forums and Facebook groups may not seem obvious at first but once you become a regular forum or Facebook group visitor you will soon start to find out why they can have a negative affect on your success as a trader.
This is because you will often find that there are certain traders who love broadcasting their positions to the rest of the world, and seem to relish the attention.
Basically it’s an ego trip, and even more so if they’re relatively successful. They start to build up a following and other readers will start to copy their trading positions.
This is a trap you really don’t want to fall into yourself. No successful Forex trader ever made their fortune by copying other traders’ positions. Pick up ideas from successful traders by all means but please don’t blindly follow other traders, particularly members of a forum or a Facebook group. After all do you think the real professionals spend their days on forums or Facebook groups? – Of course not, they’re too busy making money in Forex trading.
If you make your own decisions then at least you know that you only have yourself to blame if you lose money.
On a similar vain, you don’t want to become one of these “gods” either if you achieve any level of success yourself. This is because by bragging about how good a trader you are, you’re putting additional pressure on yourself, knowing that many other readers are scrutinizing, and worse still, copying your positions.
This can affect your trading because you may alter your stop loss and limit levels in order to try and guarantee a strong winning position is ultimately achieved, or you may hold out longer than normal if a position goes against you.
Either way there is no real benefit to broadcasting your positions on forums other than massaging your ego if a position goes to plan.
So to sum up, Forex forums and Facebook groups can be a great learning resource and can eliminate some of the boredom of daily Forex trading, but be careful about finding yourself following other members positions or broadcasting your own positions as this will inevitably have a negative impact on your own trading.
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