Trading forex? I rubbed off that thought the first time it crossed my mind. I hanged on excuses like “I am not trained in Economics or Politics” and “that seems to be a branch of rocket science”.

However, the more I resisted, the more the temptation to try it intensified. It seems the money hormones in my blood were realizing what they were missing—profiting from one of the most liquid markets in the world.

Therefore, I decided to cool them down by trying it and developing a love with one of the assets—EUR/USD.

Making the steps

Full of energy from within, I started making the first steps. I googled stuff, printed notes, and done everything possible to understand how forex trading works.

I soon opened a trading account with a good broker, and there you go—life was becoming more interesting.

After awhile, the stones of inexperience started to be thrown back at me. I thought I had mastered forex trading, but soon the market bulls tossed me around with their horns and the bears’ claws took a chunk of my account, making me realize that things are not as easy as I wanted them to be.

It was a wakeup call, but I wasn’t prepared to give up so I went back to the drawing board. After doing more research and re-evaluating my strategies, I discovered that it’s better to identify one trading asset and learn it inside out if you want to have some good night sleep as a trader.

Before this, I was a jack of all trading assets, a machine gunner focused more on the amount of bullets fired than on accuracy – I traded any asset I felt could give me more returns.

Realizing I can’t become an excellent trader of all assets at once, I started to concentrate on one asset at a time. But where to start? Well, the most frequently traded currency pair is EUR/USD so that was the first one in my sights but it made me cause massive damage to my trading account, as I didn’t know how to trade it well.

I was disgusted by USD/JPY when I decided to go for it – I mean, disgusted by it. On the other hand, GBP/USD (aka “cable’) used to scare the hell out of me and leave me feeling miserable.

I then decided to graduate to AUD/USD thinking that it was good for a slow learner like me. The story with this pair was not any different.

Sucking the sucker in my trading habit

After trading for awhile, I came back to EUR/USD—anything that goes round comes around? I learnt that EUR/USD is the most liquid in the market and therefore has more trade opportunities than any other pair.

And, if I can work hard and master its characteristics well, I can be smiling all the way from the bank every month end.

However, EUR/USD continued not to show me any love. My efforts to master it did not yield any fruits— as seen from the negative reports I was getting on my daily trading statements.

I never cared to look at the economic reports from Europe and the U.S. neither did I make the efforts to place trades according to my personality.

I soon realized that I would manage to put the EUR/USD under my feet only if I changed my attitude and understand its characteristics well.

As a result, I stopped listening to those negative instincts that were sucking my trading through disorienting my focus and started to concentrate on sharpening my skills towards taking EUR/USD by its horns.

Instead of doing a cursory fundamental analysis, I concentrated on analyzing the relative strength of the U.S. and Europe economies and how they would influence the direction of the pair.

I also traded the EUR/USD more during the prime times when there is increased volatility due to the overlapping of the U.S. and the London trading sessions.

Moving forward: My love with EUR/USD

Analyzing the pair from a fundamental point of view, EUR/USD is a graphical representation of the battle between the two giant economies of the world.

These two giants are seldom quiet; almost every day there’s something happening: rumors about stimulus tapering in the US, Mario Draghi saying he will do whatever it takes to support economic recovery in Europe or a US Government shutdown as we recently saw.

All this makes the pair… feisty and actually, that is what I like about it because my personality resonates better with EUR/USD.

I’m generally an impatient person and I like seeing quick results for my efforts. The sharp reversals, the reliability of some patterns like double tops/bottoms, and the increased volatility of the pair give me all the thrills I need… and a positive account balance as long as I remember the mistakes I did and never repeat them.