In 2012, I was getting bored and tired of my engineer routine works, and decided to quit and took a short break. During my one-month notice period, I started exploring side hustles (in fact I was into SEO / affiliate marketing in 2010, gave up due to lack of time / interest), one of my Uni friend introduced me to a “free” forex seminar in Singapore, that’s how I got into a short stint with Forex trading.
Fascinated with the concept of passive income by the trainer, I thought for few days and decided to sign up for the 2.5 days Forex course amount to SGD 3,888 (yes, I must be crazy back then). Looking back, the training material can be easily downloaded from online resources such as forex factory, baby pips, or even free YouTube channel.
The trainer was affiliated with a Forex broker, he then introduced us some top up packages with bonus credit, i took one with 1k USD bonus credits with 3k USD top up (another crazy move), without realising later that the bonus credits cannot be cashed out!
The trainer did offer some free SMS Forex tips, weekly analysis, monthly forum/discussion, etc. All of which are pretty useless, particularly their SMS Forex tips, I still recalled I lost >USD 500 (500 pips!) for a sell limit USDJPY tip, rated by the trainer as AAA graded tip, when the Yen was devalued like no tomorrow (ie. the tips called for counter trend trading, anticipated a rebounce). After this trade, I sort of lost my mind and started trading without stop loss, a big no no for an amateur like myself. As you could imagine, I blew my account in less than 2 months.
I have to admit that I love chart analysis , although my skill set didn’t improve much due to lack of patience keeping a trading journal, and the fear of losing my hard earned capital. I lost another 1k SGD over the last 3-4 years when I tried to pick up other Forex trading skills and tried to get myself serious into this side hustle. I even followed a trader who trade based on Feng Shui terminology (ended up he is not a scammer actually, he does has an edge in Forex trading but not suitable for most peasants like us).
So how much I lost / invested in Forex trading ? Close to SGD 10,000 + countless hours of anxious and sleepless night!
What did I gain from this painful experience? Some excitement from winning trades, of course. But most importantly, I found my risk appetite in investment – I am keen at involving in high risk investment (sometimes even speculation) in pursuit of high capital return, with the goal of growing my net worth steadily. Sound contradictory isn’t it?
It is all about sizing. I have decided to keep my speculative investment below 5-10% of my total portfolio, in a hope to keep some spies in my routine stocks investment. The plan sounds great, however when I indulged myself in bitcoin mining / trading in year 2017, the plan started to go south, that’s for another day.
How is your experience in Forex or other speculative trading? Are you the 1% trader who has developed your edge for consistent profits?
Journey to Financial Independence 