Trading is all about your mental state.

Trading is a mental game. The price action on the charts is the result of the actions of all of the market participants, large and small.

For speculators, it's the result of the beliefs about what next in the relative value of an individual currency pair. For those exchanging goods or services across international borders, buying or selling a given currency pair is necessary for successful trade, and the timing of any transaction will again to a certain extent be determined by an assessment of what they believe is likely to happen next.

Psychology (as I define it – the beliefs of individuals) drives the market, and as a retail trader speculating in the market myself, my primary focus is always my own psychology as this is the only thing I can control.

Over the weekend I continued to prepare for the start of the trading challenge, which begins next Monday (1 July 2019). For those of you new to this blog, I'm attempting to turn a £50K initial stake into £1M in 36 months. I know, this sounds like a tall order and yes, there are many who don't believe it can be done. But if I can achieve a return of 10% on my opening capital each month and do this consistently, I'll hit this target at the end of month 32 – such is the power of compound interest.

I'll be trading my initial stake of £50K through my private broker account. I have both a long and short account and on Monday next week each account will be funded with £25K. On Friday of this week, I'll go flat (close out) all open trades whether their currently in profit or not, to ensure a clean and transparent start to the challenge.

To ensure transparency I'll publish the statements provided by my private broker each month and am looking to see if it's possible to connect my broker to Myfxbook, although I'm struggling to establish whether, and if so, how this can be done.

I'll also be trading a smaller account in eToro and mirroring the trades I make in my private broker account. eToro is a social trading account, which enables investors to copy traders of their choice by allocating a certain percentage of their capital to whoever they choose. eToro provides statistics to enable investors to make informed decisions based on the track record of individual traders.

After a few teething problems with the platform (basically I had people wanting to copy me, but couldn't due to a restriction on the assets I could have under management), I've now been accepted as a Popular Investor. To get this status I've had to demonstrate returns for two months and keep my risk level within acceptable parameters. The latter is important, as any fool can have a big win by committing too much capital to any one financial instrument, but sooner or later they're very likely to blow up their account, and lose their copiers' money.

Why not trade the £50K through eToro? Well it's a good question that I'm happy to answer.

1. The spreads in eToro (the difference between the bid and offer price) are wider than my private broker.
2. Trade management is more difficult, as currently with currencies eToro doesn't enable me to take off partial positions, which forms part of my trading approach.

I'll be documenting the ups and downs of the challenge with full transparency in this blog and also in a weekly video I'll post on my YouTube channel. [Please be sure to 'Subscribe' and to click the 'Notification' bell.]

Whenever you put yourself out there you inevitably attract your fair share of pessimists, or at worse, haters. This is inevitable and not something that bothers me a whole lot. In my view, it's far better to set a clear goal, to try, and run the risk of failure. Better this than being too scared to try in the first place.

The first YouTube video will be going live next week and I'm in touch with a guy I found on Upwork, who is going to help me with some of the editing, so I can focus on the primary goal of trading to the best of my ability.

I'm really excited to get started next week and hope you can join me on the journey.

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Is it really possible to turn £50K into £1M? Over the next 36 months I'm going to find out by trading my personal account with full transparency.
Follow my 36-month challenge to turn £50K into £1M.
Read my blog here: https://stgforextvforexchallenge.blogspot.com
Subscribe on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyGySJ5IeDjq-DIJPU7nYvw

[Please note, the information presented is general educational material and does not constitute trading advice.
Trading foreign exchange (forex) on margin carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for you or your circumstances.
Before trading forex you should investigate all of the risks, including the possibility that you could lose more than your initial investment.
It’s important to consider your investment objectives, level of experience and risk appetite. If in doubt seek advice from an independent financial advisor.]