Following the stories of successful female traders is always interesting. This time, we will reveal Valeria Bednarik's story, a female trader from Argentina who gained success through learning from losses.
Following the stories of successful female traders is always interesting, not only because of their minority status, but also their determination in building their careers in forex business. Previously, we have revealed Kathy Lien's story and her perception of fundamental analysis and glass ceiling. This time, we will give you another tale of a female trader coming from Valeria Bednarik. Who is she and what is her success story?
Valeria Bednarik is a successful female trader from Argentina who built her career since 2003. Currently, she is busy managing active trades, giving lessons to newcomers, and being a responsible mother and housewife to her family. She is accounted for her trading skills, and her dedication to share knowledge with other traders had earned her the Chief Analyst position in FXStreet, making her an invaluable asset for the company.
From Accounting, Fraud Victim, To Forex Teaching
Valeria Bednarik was raised in a family which only considers medicine and accounting as the top careers to achieve better future. She graduated from Universidad Catolica del Salvador as a Certified Public Accountant. She admitted that she was always interested in finance, but up until she was 30, her life was only focused on taxes and cost management.
She decided to quit her job as a General Manager in a small technology company to seriously learn about forex trading. Her determination only went up after being scammed by a Ponzi scheme that left about 11,000 victims in South America.
An Unforgettable Learning Experience
Valeria Bednarik chose to pursue a formal form of trading education in Trader Colloege LLC, a learning institution in Argentina. Why didn't she take the easy way to just learn online just like most newbie traders? Well, it had something to do with her country's tradition that only saw careers built from education in real schools. Following an internet course is hardly considered serious study, said her.
What made her study experience unforgettable is the moment when she grasped the reality of forex beginners' condition. At the time she started her education, she was warned that only 4 out of 100 students would survive the class. She didn't believe any of it at the beginning, but realization finally dawned on her after seeing a lot of her partners dropped out in the process, just because of the required hard work and commitment. She concluded that despite the evolution of forex market around the world, many beginners still think they can make easy money and become rich in few trades.
Being An Independent Trader
After finishing her education at Trader College, She stayed and taught there for some time. She also joined Mol FX, another forex school based in Argentina, and developed by one of the students from Trader College.
Not long after, she took a chance in her life for the second time (the first time is when she quitted her position in the technology company) by leaving both institutions to be 100%, independent trader. Her concept of solo career consists of trading for herself and teaching to others. Through her position in FXStreet, she is able to realize both objectives.
So, How Does She Trade?
In an interview excerpt with FXStreet, Valeria Bednarik was asked about her viewpoint for technical analysis. She responded by sharing her strory her in discovering the right composition for her analysis, starting from holy grail finding to operating more than one trading chart.
The Quest For The Holy Grail
During her learning phase, the technical analysis had brought out a lot of whys like why use this tool and not that one. She had moments of difficulty in finding the right answer, as the number of technical indicators and techniques is uncountable, and it's continually updated from time to time. The process is endless and starters tend to be caught up in a situation where they need to apply all indicators at the same time.
Upon going through her personal experience related to the quest for the holy grail, Valeria Bednarik was able to conclude that it is not a matter of what, but how we apply it, and how we understand the pair's behavior related to it.
The Most Precious Loss
Unlike other traders who prefer to recall their winning moments, Valeria Bednarik chose to share her first big loss experience. It was when she lost more than $2,000 in one trade, which covered around 50% of her whole account. It took 4 months of extreme discipline to recover from that loss. Her happiest moment as a trader was taken from her success in following trading plan and strategy, not when she won or gained big profits. The first big loss was so memorable to her that now she can really speak from experience about learning more from losing trades than the winning ones.
Price Action And Crowd Behaviour
Despite believing that crowd behavior is indeed important for reflecting price crosses, she took an important insight into price action study as the one that can help us to understand the behavior itself. Surely, it was important to remember the basic principle of trading, that market behavior reflected the price movement. However, wouldn't it be too difficult to know each factor affecting the market? There were too many of them and beginners would be overwhelmed by the possibility of understanding every factor and how they would be reflected by the price movement.
Thus, Valeria suggested the inverse process: by getting to know the price action (the pattern that reflects market behavior). She explained that it will tell you what the market is focusing on. It's just a starter trick but it tends to help to understand what the dominant forces are at the time.
Necessity For Extra Chart
Valeria has her own composition of technical indicators: a couple of Moving Averages, Momentum. CCI, and RSI. Technical perspectives generated from the combination are applicable in any possible time frame. Not all of them work as main indicators of course, some are used to be fillers, the others can be the triggers, and there are certain tools that only work for specific pairs.
Not only showing her set of technical indicators, Valeria also revealed that operating with one chart is not enough for her. She uses the combination in her basic time frame, while in her extra chart, she usually adds trend lines and Fibonacci to test some other stuff. The reason why she appears to have so many tools and charts is because of her passion to never stop learning. The day I stop studying is the day I'll be dead. Knowledge is the base of success, cited her.
Women Potential: Yes For Achieving More Success, No For Becoming The Majority
Valeria Bednarik is in the same line with those agreeing on women's potency to reach more success. Yet, she refuses to acknowledge her gender's probability to become the majority in forex trading.
Lack of Ego Spares Women From Committing Trading Sins
Valeria agrees with Dr. Alexander Elder, who stated in his book Come Into My Trading Room that the percentage of successful traders is higher among women. Women's tendency to put aside their arrogance is the reason why they have more chances to succeed in forex trading.
Valeria quoted Dr. Elder's claim ...arrogance is a deadly sin in trading. The male ego - that wonderful trait that has been bringing us wars, riots, and bloodshed since time immemorial - tends to get heavily caught up in trading”. Instead of trying to prove themselves, women incline to focus on how to take profits and avoid losses. The last part stands out the most to Valeria as she also feels the same way about how she trades. The more she gains experience, the more she understands that proving anything to anyone is not necessary. ...life has punched me enough times to erase any attempt of arrogance. I win, I lose, it's my job! And I love it! said her.
Thorough Study Pre-Demo Trading
Valeria also confirmed that women are more studious than male traders. Not only agreeing to it, but she also added that female traders tend to learn thoroughly before they start demo trading. In contrast, male traders incline to rush experimenting in live accounts even when they haven't understood much about trading. Once again, Valeria related it to the male ego. For her, having personal goals, success, and "fame" are great, but those things are not important enough to make her top priorities.
Women Becoming The Majority Is Unimaginable
It turns out that supporting women's potentials and predicting their prospect to become the majority are two different things for Valeria. Although she clearly stated out her agreement on women's capabilities, she still couldn't picture a world where women can become the majority in forex trading. She used the excuse of living in a macho Latino world to justify her opinion.
Nonetheless, she continued to sum up that gender is not the most important aspect of determining a trader's chance. The market does not know my gender. It also ignores if I study or not, if I plan my trading and follow a strategy or just bet, and everything else commented her. In the end, it all comes down to one's capability in understanding the market and how they react to its movement.
Between Career And Family
Being a good mother figure while managing a professional career is not a difficult thing to do for Valeria Bednarik. After realizing how limited her family time was, she renewed her determination to raise her children by herself. She started by changing her working schedule and installed a small office at home.
Her active working time is around 5 AM when the London session is already opened and 8 PM to watch Nikkei opening and the tone of Asian session. Other than those periods, she fully dedicates her time for family matters. It sounds complicated but it's actually easy when turned into a daily routine, shared her.
Family is a big deal in Argentina, and support from family members seems to be very important for a person's career. However, no one in Valeria's family understands what she does. But they care enough to give her a phone call when stocks slump enough to be on the news. Besides, one of her brothers is now learning to be an independent trader despite his already promising career, and she is set to give him a chance for that.