How To Enter The World Of Financial Trading (From The Comfort of Your Kitchen Table)

As the cost of living crisis continues, many people are seeking out new ways to supplement their regular income. From launching side hustles to taking on extra jobs, there’s a plentiful need for generating more cash to cover bills, or upgrade your lifestyle. But while the options may seem endless and often overwhelming, more and more of us are looking to the financial markets to make our fortune. But how can you get started get into trading safely and, most importantly, profitably? Belle About Town spoke to Lewis Crompton, founder of STARTrading, who took his income from £20k to more than a million in five years through financial trading. Lewis put half his annual salary onto a credit card to invest in learning how to trade, and seven months later was able to give up his job in retail and start trading full time. He now coaches others in the hows and whys of finance trading and believes that with just 30 minutes a day coaching, solid commitment, and a good deal of hard work, anyone can make their name in the trading game, and achieve the income and salary they have always dreamed of.

Here are Lewis’ top five tips for getting started in financial training:

Stay low risk-high reward

The system I teach is tax free in the UK, takes just 30mins per day and is low risk, high reward. The way I make this happen is by only using 1% of the entire trading account on each trade. So on an account with £10,000 the maximum you could lose on a trade is £100. Our minimum profit potential should also be £100 if not £200, £300, £500 etc. This simple money management system means I guarantee my students will never lose all of their money. From the research done on traders who don’t make profit, the breaking of this one rule was a big reason why they didn’t succeed. 

Start small, grow big

No matter how wealthy you are, don’t start with more than £1,000 in your account. You can start with as little as £250 but an ideal is around £500. The reality is when you are learning to master the skill set of financial trading, you will make some mistakes. Make those mistakes on a smaller amount of money not a large amount of money. Once you are consistent, confident and competent, then the sky is the limit with where you can grow your account to. One of my clients, Sarah, is a full time financial controller and decided to get into trading when her mortgage payments doubled overnight and she was struggling to pay the bills. Now she trades just 30 minutes each day from her kitchen table and is looking to leave her job within two years and relying solely on her trading income. 

Make trading a priority

My client Saffron is a social worker who got into trading because, although she loves what she does, it doesn’t afford her the lifestyle she wants. When you are learning a new skill like trading, it isn’t always easy, so you need to prioritise it. Mastering the trading the trading skills that I teach and the systems that I use can take a few months, but once you’ve got them mastered, you know them for life. If you don’t make it a priority, don’t give it the time it needs – which when learning is around one hour per day – then you will struggle to get the results that you want. 

Don’t do it alone

I have clients who have spent years trying to teach themselves how to trade. Online forums and YouTube videos will not give you the advice or support you need to become successful, and could lead you down a path of losing a lot of money. One client, Dan, had spent five years trying to learn the tricks of trading, without any success. After joining one of my mentorship programmes Dan was trading successfully within three months and was able to pay his way out of a substantial HMRC debt. It is near impossible to learn to trade financial markets yourself because there is skill involved. Just like learning to drive a car, you need an instructor to keep you safe, focus you, and show you how to apply the process and techniques correctly. Trading can be a solitary journey so why not join a community of other traders whom you can learn from and get support from?

Always use a regulated broker

There are a lot of brokers out there, and not all are good and not all are created equal. You want to stay safe in the financial markets and one way to do that is to only use FCA regulated brokers. That comes with an added bonus of having your money insured up to £85,000 which means that if the broker was to go bust, your money is held safely up to that value.