Episode 1 | Why I Aimed to be a Trader [Ketti]

Nice to meet you! My name is Keiko Matsumoto, known as Ketti, making my first appearance in FX-Kouhou.com本誌. In my column, I’d like to delve into how a life completely unrelated to the financial industry became a housewife-turned-trader, and address the rumors and image commonly associated with trading.

【Ketti’s FX Isn’t Scary – Serialized Article】
・Episode 1: Why I Started Aiming to Be a Trader（Free to view）
・Episode 2: Myself When I Began Studying Trading
・Episode 3: Family Support That Becomes a Tailwind and the Winds We Keep Quiet About (1)
・Episode 4: Family Support That Becomes a Tailwind and the Winds We Keep Quiet About (2)
・Episode 5: How to Secure Study Time for Trading and Transforming My Image of Trading
・Episode 6: The Moment Light First Appeared While Still Studying
・Final Episode: Conditions That Make Me Think of Myself as a Trader

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【Ketti’s FX Technical Tiger Roll (All 12 Episodes)】
・Episode 1: How to Choose Your Winning Pattern

Why I Aimed to Become a Trader

Products That Make Money Online

I am currently raising twins who are in the first grade. Every day, I live as a mother, wife, managing childcare, housework, and work. I seriously started considering becoming an FX trader in December 2011. I was co-running a certain business, but I realized that cloud of gloom was gathering around that business, which became the trigger for me.

Every morning at 8 o’clock I would send the kids to daycare, pick them up at 6–7 p.m., and as soon as I got home, I would immediately shower and prepare dinner, then fall into bed exhausted. The work itself was meaningful, but the future income was unclear, and I worried every day… I wanted to escape this life and began searching day after day for something I could earn with just one PC.

I bought many things like affiliate marketing, arbitrage, online casinos, and other scammy materials, and for a time I would work hard on each, but I would end up with nothing earned, a complete failure.

Encounter with FX

Just chasing the sales pages of online products left me disappointed, and I started to doubt what was true and what was a lie. Of course, there are people who make money from affiliates, arbitrage, or online casinos. But I believed that buying one product would instantly let me earn money easily. In my desperate state, many entrants were around, and I began to wonder what existed in the professional world.

I thought maybe this industry could stand on its own as “investment”… and FX drew my attention because it required less capital than stocks to participate. I went to a bookstore, bought two beginner FX books, and that marked the start of my FX journey.

Several Months of Standing Still

Even after buying the books, I, who had no connection to the financial industry and had never heard of trading terms, struggled to finish these beginner books.

I frequent-checked technical terms online, read them, and still felt unclear or unclear with a hint of clarity (laughs). Just understanding the mechanism of short selling required rereading many times; I would imagine it in my head, but with no actual experience, I hardly felt a moment of “I see the point!!” I still continued to gather information from FX blogs and books daily to fill in the basics.

Then I purchased a certain FX product, and based on that method, I managed an automated trading software for binary options.

The 100,000 Yen That Vanished in an Instant

On the second day of operating this automated trading software, my funds doubled. A week later, my 100,000 yen was a meager amount, and I was once again overwhelmed by huge disappointment and regret.

“I lost precious money again…”
“After all, you can’t make money online…”
“FX is harder than I thought…”

These thoughts filled my mind, and I lived days when I felt crushed by anxiety about my future. Looking back now, that period was tough. I had no dreams or hope, just trying to get through each day. Even while parenting, I couldn’t fully enjoy anything from the bottom of my heart… I was constantly worried about money, and I remember having a strong desire to get out of this situation somehow.

Still Attracted to the Movement of the Charts

After the binary experience, one thing bothered me: the movement of candlesticks. I had tried many things before, but every time I hit a wall, I quickly lost interest and gave up. This time, though, I watched the chart movements for a week and couldn’t help but be drawn to them.

“Why did it drop here??”
“Why did this candle extend so much??”

Constant questions of “Why?” and “How come?” about the charts kept surfacing.

The World of Trading I Fell Deep Into

From these failures, I set strict rules and criteria for myself!!

【Principle】 Not only aggressive investing, but defensive investing is equally important

From there, I wanted to know everything about the world of trading. In affiliates, I would quit once I read the material; in arbitrage, I would quit once I created an account on an overseas site and deposited money; in other ventures, I would drop out midway. Yet despite losing money in FX, I didn’t want to give up. I felt that perhaps I could make money in this world if I did things differently.

The biggest difference from past failures and FX was my own “interest.”

My interest in everything related to trading grew, and I wanted to absorb anything possible. Because of this curiosity, I decided to pursue becoming a trader and learned as much as I could about the trader’s world until I could make it my goal.

※ This article is a revised edition of FX攻略.com’s November 2015 issue