Dubai: Augmenting one’s income with profitable trading in currencies, stocks and commodities has become a notional possibility with a few clicks from a trading software or a phone app. But is it as easy as it seems?
Investing, whether done in the traditional buy and hold manner, or using more dynamic techniques as in forex (currency) trading, is a complex subject marked with subtle shades of gray. Newbies entering investment classes are unable to make consistent profits because they fail to understand the importance of financial literacy as a prerequisite. This coupled with beginner’s luck on demo accounts and simple, sound-bite investment advice coming from investment marketers convinces them to plunge into the financial markets without a proper trading blueprint and mind-set. The result is substantial monetary and psychological damage and a protracted disenchantment with the financial markets altogether.
The key to successful investing or trading lies in expanding one’s financial literacy with professional trading courses and educational programmes that teach profitable strategies based on expert experience, together with how to minimise risks. Investing in financial education builds on one’s financial intelligence and is the key to long-term financial success and wealth multiplication.
What distinguishes genuine financial education from sales-centred hyperbole? An authentic financial education programme shows you how to identify profitable opportunities, without shying away from any risks involved. Nothing is guaranteed, effortless or riskless; returns, whether stable or ambiguous, are always defined in terms of the commensurate risks involved. Without employing aggressive selling techniques that just aim at closing business, robust financial training programmes allow investors to comprehend financial freedom as a gradual process of skill-building and habit formation, rather than some magical, holy grail strategy.
Are trading courses and financial training programmes expensive? Not particularly so, if one compares a few hundred dollars spent on a comprehensive investment course with the millions that ignorance and lack of knowledge costs investors.
- The author is founder, Trade In Peace, and a US-certified Dubai-based professional trader and coach for currencies and futures
