Currency Trading as Retirement Hobby/Gig?

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There is a book about currency trading titled " Bird Watching in Lion Country." I should probably read it before seriously looking into currency trading. Options trading would seem the safest way, I believe TIAA Bank (formerly Everbank) offers some currency Options. You always are betting on one currency against another. For instance, US Dollar vs Euro, as a pair.

I read a book on currency trading years ago but never got into it and lost interest after more or less writing it off as too risky, which it is high risk.
 
I had a forex account but didn't do much with it. I'd rather go to casino to gamble and get free cocktails as a bonus.
 
As long as you only uise money you can afford to lose 100% of then go for it. As said its basically gambling when done on small scale.
 
You might as well learn Crypto then, which is more volatile but has greater reward opportunities.
 
I'm guessing that beyond a bit of reading on the internet or a book or two, you really don't know anything about currency trading, correct? The idea of doing it for a "gig" or "hobby" begs to lose money-folks that are experts lose money on a regular basis, but they make up for it by more significant gains on occasion.

You'd have better odds of making money by driving that shiny new pickup out to Vegas and spending your days plunking quarters into a slot machine.
 
As I said in your other thread: Choose something that you enjoy doing in your retirement.

IF you had earned your living doing this sort of thing, AND you were very good at this form of gambling, AND you enjoyed it, I'd say go for it.

As it is, it sounds like a good way to lose your life savings.
 
Originally Posted by Fawteen


You'd have better odds of making money by driving that shiny new pickup out to Vegas and spending your days plunking quarters into a slot machine.


It's not actually that shiny. I intentionally bought medium grey in order to not have to fuss around so much with keeping it clean. Hand washed, dried, and sealed with Turtle Wax Ice seal and shine about a month after getting it. Couple touchless automatic washes since, that's it.
cool.gif


P.S. We have a casino here, but I don't go to it. I have made money off it however, as I used to do some extra work there as a contractor for which they paid relatively handsome wages, given the ease of the work.
 
Originally Posted by Jimzz
As long as you only uise money you can afford to lose 100% of then go for it. As said its basically gambling when done on small scale.

Actually you have to be prepared to lose more than all the money you have invested. If you're buying and selling futures contracts and the market turns against you, there may be no limit to your losses. And things can move fast and for reasons you could never predict.

As an example, one of my patients was a farmer who grew canola. The markets for canola were strong in the spring so he sold a bit of canola - about half of what he expected to grow that year. It's a conservative plan. He takes advantage of current strong prices and sells half of his expected crop. What could go wrong?

Well the weather was beyond terrible and his canola crop made a new record low - there was almost nothing to harvest in fact. And did I mention that markets had been good. Markets were great that fall, much higher than when he had sold the contracts. So he had to buy canola to fulfill the contracts, and at a much higher price than he had sold it.

His conservative plan nearly wiped him out. Not only did he have a poor crop (ie little income) he had to buy canola at the new even higher prices (ie major losses). Lots can go wrong in the futures market.

As an alternative to futures trading, you could just burn your money in a barrel. That would take a lot of the stress out of it.
 
I don't think you should retire and start playing around with your money. Your probably thinking: "I'm just going to risk $5000 and see what happens". It's your money and you can do what you want with it.
What about volunteering for Habitat For Humanity, Meals On Wheels....?
 
I think you're talking about what are basically known as naked calls which is the most risky option. You could also just buy options and if they expire out of the money you just lose whatever you spent on them. If you sell calls where you don't own the underlying security, then if there's a run on the security, you have no limit to your losses. There's ways to limit your losses like doing straddles where you might buy two on the up and one on the down in case it moves against you.
 
I'd also look into getting a job at a car dealer driving vehicles. Most dealers use older guys to take vehicles to the auction, other dealers, drive the courtesy shuttle.. .
 
I'd probably just set some limits and get it out of your system...knowing you're going to lose, perhaps break even...and be lucky to make money.

There's other options....you could open up a brokerage account and pick individual stocks. You could loan people money online. Learn a language, travel, Uber driver, Amazon delivery, deliver lost luggage back to their owners, etc, etc.
 
A guy I know is doing some day trading with some sort of robot programs he bought. Don't know a thing about it and don't want to but he's starting out easy and is making some nice pocket money so far. It's called Automated Day Trading Software and buys and sells in seconds or fractions of seconds I guess.
 
It will take years to develop a system that works for you. A system that works for someone else, probably won't work for you. Figure 5-10 yrs to get good at it and learn (from hard knocks) of all of the pit falls.
And even if you practice for 1-2 yrs with "fake money," the difference with real money on the line is huge. Develop a system that can consistently work for you 60-70% of the time. Managing your emotions and money management (how to much to wager, when to get out) are the hardest things to tame. Most people lose their shirt not because their system stinks, but because they mis-managed the money. It's much harder than it looks....regardless of all the "get rich quick" trading schemes that worked for someone else. You're working about a zillion Big Bank bots out there that have about every conceivable system loaded into their process. Nothing new to them. And just because you're in the right position....doesn't mean you can hold it for the short term while the Bots attack it. Good luck.
 
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I think if you have the interest and hopefully a smaller amount of money that losing entire amount would not bother you go for it. Start small, learn, and scale up if interesting to you.

The grave error of people and businesses or even hobbies is spending too much initially and not proving it works. Getting out is expensive.
 
Forex. You better read more than a book. Alot of moving parts in a currency trade. Unless you are looking to do long swing trades?
 
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