There are some conservative strategies to invest in the forex market that many people consider too boring and evidently not complicated enough. It seems there is a breed of players entering the Forex market the same way they would belly up to a roulette wheel in Las Vegas.
I ran an analysis a couple of weeks ago that you may find interesting. First of all it is important to note that this is based on historical prices and is not necessarily representative of future results. But it is interesting.
Let's say that you opened a conservative hedge trade on the 1st of any month this year.with $10,000 and used a conservative margin of 10% You just let the account sit and didn't touch it what would it have looked like on 7/20/2007 (the day I ran the analysis).
If you opened your account on
Jan 1st = $13,161 on 7/20/2007
Feb 1st = $13,645
Mar 1st = $11,924
Apr 1st = $12,045
May 1st = $10,473
Jun 1st = $10,530
None of these accounts would have ever been close to a margin call and the Jan and Feb accounts would seem to have faired quite well through the China correction during late Feb / early Mar.
So I guess the morale of the story is that it is not the Forex market that is the problem. It is the human elements of greed, fear, lack of knowledge and lack of a conservative investment strategy.
It's not what you do it's how you do it!
Good luck with your decision process.
Paul
Is this illegal?
If that's true, he would need to make sure that you are an accredited investor. That is, satisfying the following:
"a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase;
a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or
a trust with assets in excess of $5 million, not formed to acquire the securities offered, whose purchases a sophisticated person makes."
If you don't satisfy that he would need to jump through some real hoops to be able to collect that incentive fee and not run afoul of the rules. Given these issues, I recommend that you spend some time talking to him as well as talking to an investment pro before you invest.
Good luck.
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The first poster that said to trade currency futures is insane. Futures contracts possess the potential for unlimited losses. Like the one poster said, you can lose 100% in fx, but you can loss 200% in futures. I've seen several instances of futures traders losing their entire account and then having to cough up more money to cover the losses above what was in their account. If you have a $10,000 futures account, you could realistically lose $50,000 on a trade that goes horribly wrong and you'd have to come up with an additional $40,000 to cover the loss above the $10,000 in your account. In fx, you can only lose your entire account.
I am an fx trader and I love it, but I don't think it's for everyone. It bothers me when a person knocks a specific investment vehicle because they don't like it or it doesn't fit their investment style. I don't like medicine. The hours are long, the field is tough, but I wouldn't go knocking being a doctor. Because it's not what interests me or what I want to do doesn't mean it's a bad occupation. There are people out there that love medicine and are geniuses in the field. It's good for them, but it's not good for everyone.
The same thing with investments, I love the high risk markets, but only a small percentage of the population are suited for them. Doesn't make them bad.
I really wish people would stop being so judgmental about things they don't like or don't understand. If forex trading is not for them, then they should just say, "Hey, I don't like it, but that's me", instead of making it out to be an evil that EVERYONE should stay away from.