Everyone who trades in foreign exchange started doing so because they had a dream to be one of the best.
Whether you’re a trader who’s only just started or an experienced professional, you have the drive to be as great as the other forex traders who took the leap and succeeded.
From thousands of dreamers, only a few can achieve this. If you’re wondering how they did it, then this article is going to list down three real-world forex success stories to inspire you to do the same:
#1: Ingeborga Mootz
You might think that trading is only for the younger people; that age matters when it comes to forex trading, but Ingeborga Mootz proves that you can be a successful trader no matter what age you are—even if you’re 96 years old.
Don’t underestimate what grandparents can do.
While some of them prefer other activities like baking, gardening, and knitting, Ingeborga dedicated her time to the forex stock market. By 96 years old, the German widow had become a millionaire.
Her name is one of Germany’s many respected names, but she didn’t start that way.
At the age of 17, she married her then-husband so that she could live a better life than the underprivileged life she’d led before.
Unfortunately, she was forced to depend on her partner for all things financial. Every cent she needed had to be run past her husband.
Even though Ingeborga wanted to work for herself, her husband never allowed it. This continued for about 60 more years.
Upon her husband’s passing, life became brighter and better for Ingeborga. His death revealed 1000 shares that her husband had worked on for his entire life.
Most people would take the shares and spend it on themselves, but not Ingeborga. She took the risk and invested that money into forex. And that changed her life forever.
Within her first eight years of trading, she had earned 500,000 euros. The rest is history.
Her strategy is straightforward. She would buy stock shares and sell them instead of putting her money in bank savings programs or investment funds.
All the information she needs, she finds in newspapers. She selects corporations and looks up the history of their stock market sales in the past five years.
Then, she decides on whether to buy stock shares or not. Don’t doubt her strategies because how many people do you know gain millions at 96?
#2: Edward Arthur Seykota
When Edward was five years old, he had already begun to show the makings of a great trader. He was the child of immigrants who moved from the Netherlands to the USA.
How did he trade at the young age of 5? He gave his neighbor a medallion for five magnifying lenses he wanted to use for his hobbies.
From then, he was fascinated by the world of trading. Who knew that a little boy trading in a medallion for magnifying lenses would earn the title, Father of the Trading System?
He began to trade professionally in the 1970s. Edward was captivated by innovative ideas to make money.
Two of these ideas involved using machines to make money and automating mechanical tools and technical analysis.
Soon, he would come up with automated algorithms to be used in trading and utilized computer programs to deal with trade exchanges.
And once he did, he kept adding to his trading system to develop it. Edward adjusted his trading style and introduced more rules to the system, telling it to look for money management algorithms and pattern triggers.
Edward’s trading system worked, and he implemented it to accounts owned by his customers. One of the increases he raked in started at $5,000 and rose 250,000% in about 16 years.
Now, Edward travels and tours in various cities worldwide to meet with traders and discuss issues they’ve experienced in trading.
He encourages everyone he meets to control their emotions in the trading market and to adjust their strategies to fit the system.
“The system does not need to be changed,” he writes in his book, Market Wizards. “The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible.”
As time passes, Edward makes the necessary changes to the system to abide by modern trading styles and preferences.
His genuine love for the trade and his optimism also help him keep moving forward as he reaps the rewards of his success.
#3: Bill Lipschutz
Bill Lipschutz is best known for taking his $12,000 inheritance and turning it to $250,000 all while he was still in college. How did he do this?
Well, he invested it in his free time. But it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine for Bill back then.
A little while after earning the $250,000, he almost lost his entire trading account because of one investment decision that turned out to be wrong.
He had to start over from square one, but instead of giving up on trading forever, Bill used that massive loss as a life lesson and continued to fuel his passion for learning.
In 1984, he joined the Salomon Brothers in the Foreign Exchange Department. One year in, and he had already raked in $300 million for the firm.
This goes to show that you don’t always start on the right foot. Sometimes, the hard days win, and sometimes they don’t.
The best that you can do is keep trying and keep learning. Bill has four fundamental tenets that he lives by when it comes to trading:
1. Time is a risk factor
2. The game is the “thing.”
3. Know pain, but don’t fear it
4. Insane focus is a must!
Conclusion
All these success stories have one thing in common: They persisted despite the odds stacked against them.
It may not be your time to succeed in the trade market yet, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop learning.
Forex trading changes depending on which way the wind blows. You need to adjust rapidly to these changes and seize opportunities that come your way.
