Why is it so difficult to trade the forex markets successfully?

Most forex retail participants lose money and its usually because many approach currency trading with a very short-term mindset, jumping in and out of trades every 5 or so minutes. We don’t really recommend this even if most traders do this (and most end up losing money in the end) – there is really no reason why a longer term time perspective like days or weeks can’t be considered.

If applying a longer time horizon use wider stops as the moves are going to be larger. A 360-point stop loss will have the same modest impact on your trading as a 30-point stop loss – you simply need to trade 1/12 the size. This may sound obvious but so many people take crazy risks.