How many people lose money when they start online forex trading? No matter what you may have heard, the real answer is 100%. Everybody does. That includes you, by the way. Or, more precisely, will include you once you fund your shiny new forex account with real money.

Who are those people who do make money on forex? Well, they are the ones who learned from their losses. And, most importantly, they are the ones who survived their apprenticeship on the forex exchange with enough money and motivation left to achieve mastery.

rule #1: to surviving on forex exchange: don’t ever do any online forex trading with money that you can not afford to lose. When you open your first forex account, don’t think of it as a deposit. Write the money off the moment you transfer it to the broker. Think of it as the tuition fee. If you make anything, that would be a rebate.

Rule #2: learn to take planned losses. Calculate your margins. Remember that any trade that can double your money is equally capable of wiping you out unless you employ protective measures. Your only goal must be to learn controlling losses while regularly making real forex trades. It is a lot harder than it may seem.

Rule #3: never stop learning. That’s what you are paying for. There are no quick, easy or foolproof methods of making a living by online forex trading. If there were any, everybody and their mother would be doing it. Learning is what gradually shifts the chances in your favor. Online forex trading without knowledge is a game of chance. With knowledge, it’s an art form.

Rule #4: never trade without having a clear reason for each particular trade. A hunch doesn’t cut it. Unless you are omniscient, in which case you wouldn’t be reading this, each trade (or a number of trades) must be planned according to some strategy, and then the result must be analyzed. Doing it in writing helps a lot. Without this, you can’t learn.

Rule #5: never trust any kind of forex strategies “proven” by backtesting. That includes published results as well as your own research using any sort of commercial software or your forex platform. This is a subject that can’t possibly be covered in one article, and a proper explanation will probably take several books. Research this on your own. Until you know exactly what backtesting is, and exactly how your forex platform does it, you can only trust negative backtesting results.

When does your apprenticeship end? It depends on how hard you learn, but generally, it is when you can take a series of planned losses without regret, and continue to be confident in your trading plan. Online forex trading requires both resolve and knowledge.