My Forex Journey — From a Telephone Order to KXU Master Forex Group

By Peter Xu, London

I want to tell you a personal story about my relationship with the FX market.

This isn’t a story about becoming a perfect trader.

It is a story about curiosity, mistakes, losses, experience, discipline—and eventually discovering why I wanted to share what I learned with others.

My first experience with Forex

My journey began in London in the early 1990s, when the retail Forex market looked very different from what it is today.

I attended an event organised by a small Chinese company in Chinatown called BAIGAODA. A speaker from CMC introduced us to their newly developing trading service.

At that time, placing a trade was nothing like clicking a button on today’s trading platforms.

I remember asking for a price on Cable — GBP/USD. The receptionist would telephone CMC and ask for the bid or offer. Then the price would come back to me, and I had to say: “Yes” or “No.” Once I said yes, the trade was done. I remember that the whole process could take around two minutes.

Today, that sounds incredibly slow. At the time, however, it was fascinating. I had discovered the Forex market, and I was hooked.

My first Forex business

In late 1994, my interest became more serious.

I established London Currency Corporation Limited and had an office at 57 Great Eastern Street in London EC2A.

I had a few Chinese-speaking clients and used Reuters terminals to obtain live financial market information and prices. The financial-services regulatory environment was very different from the one we know today, and the industry was still evolving rapidly. I was building a small business, learning about the market and discovering what it meant to operate inside the financial world.

Then something unexpected happened. I received an opportunity to study for an MBA at Royal Holloway, University of London. I was attracted by the university’s Founder’s Building, one of the world’s most spectacular university buildings. Queen Victoria opened the campus in 1886, and I was drawn to the opportunity to study in an environment connected to London’s wider financial and business community. So I made a difficult decision. I closed the office and became a student again.

My business journey temporarily stopped.

My Forex journey did not.

Forex became my hobby

After university, Forex became a personal passion. I opened an account with a broker in London’s West End, near Berkeley Square.

The trading process was still remarkably simple compared with today’s technology. I would telephone the broker and say that I wanted to buy or sell Cable at a particular price. Sometimes the broker would also give me his view of the market. He might say:

“I think the market will go long.”

I would make my own decision.

“Yes, I want to buy.”

That was my trading world.

No sophisticated mobile app.

No instant execution button.

No social-media trading community.

Just a trader, a telephone, a price and a decision.

And every round trip came with a high commission. I remember execution-only service cost $25, and advice service cost $50.

The days I will never forget

Two market memories from those years have stayed with me.

The first was during the political turmoil surrounding John Major’s government in the 1990s. I was trading Cable from my Westminster apartment. I remember watching the screen as the political news broke. The market moved violently. Cable dropped roughly 100 pips almost immediately, followed by another significant move down.

I lost money. I had not managed the position properly. More importantly, I hadn’t understood how quickly an unexpected event could change the market. When the prime minister resigned that morning, the news came out, and the pound fell. That lesson stayed with me.

The second memory was September 11, 2001.

I was sitting in my office at No. 1 Harley Street; a position was live, and I was looking at the market screen. I stepped away for a very short time. When I came back, the market had moved dramatically — hundreds of pips. At first, I did not know what had happened. I searched for the news. Then I discovered what was happening in New York. The World Trade Centre had been attacked. I will never forget looking at the screen and realising that behind every enormous price movement was a real-world event. That was another lesson:

The market does not exist in isolation.

Politics, economics, fear, uncertainty and human behaviour can all become part of the price.

My expensive education

For many years, Forex remained my hobby. I lost money.

A lot of my early trading was based on my own ideas rather than proper education. I did not read enough. I did not learn systematically from experienced traders. I entered trades because I believed the market would move a certain way.

And when it moved against me, I often made another mistake.

I moved my stop-loss.

40 pips became 60.

60 became 80.

80 became 85.

85 became 100.

And eventually the stop was hit.

Looking back, I can see the real problem. I was trying to make the market prove me right. Instead, I should have been asking:

“What if I am wrong?”

That question changed my thinking.

I gradually became less interested in predicting the market and more interested in managing the situation. I began to think about the market differently — not emotionally, but strategically.

The battlefield

One idea that influenced my thinking came from the strategic traditions of Chinese military philosophy.

I started to see Forex as a battlefield.

Not because trading is literally war, but because the principles of preparation, timing, information, discipline, and capital preservation offer useful ways to think about a difficult and uncertain environment.

The trader is the commander.

Capital is the army.

Risk is the battlefield.

And every trade is a decision about whether the conditions are favourable enough that I am in a position of terrain advantage. This eventually led me to develop my own framework of 36 Forex battle strategies. These strategies came from years of observation, mistakes, experimentation and testing. I am continuing to develop them into a broader Forex framework that can be used to think about different market situations. I do not claim that any strategy can predict every market. The market will always contain uncertainty.

I believe a trader can get better at preparing, managing risk, recognising conditions, and controlling their own behaviour. That is where discipline becomes important. Here are two imaginative stories about how to think about trading Forex.

The train that went the wrong way

I often use simple stories to explain trading psychology. Imagine that you rush into a railway station. You pass through the ticket gate and see a train waiting. You jump on. The doors close. The train leaves.

A few minutes later, you look out of the window. Something is wrong. The train is travelling north. But your destination is south.

What do you do? You could think:

“Maybe the train will turn around.”

So you stay on the train.

Then you think:

“Maybe it will turn around at the next station.”

You continue waiting. Then another station passes. You are now even further away from your destination. Eventually, you realise the obvious:

You got on the wrong train.

The sensible decision is to get off at the next appropriate station immediately, accept your wasted time/energy and additional fare cost.

Trading Forex can be exactly the same. You enter a trade. The market moves against you. Instead of accepting that your original decision may have been wrong, you move your stop-loss further away. Then further again. You hope the market will return. But most of the time, it keeps moving further in the opposite direction. The loss becomes larger. The lesson is simple:

When the market proves that your original decision is wrong, discipline means getting off the train.

A stop-loss is not an admission of failure. It is a method of protecting your capital.

The 1,000 soldiers

I use another story to explain capital management. Imagine you are a commander with 1,000 soldiers.

Your soldiers are waiting safely in the camp. But every morning you tell them:

“Go out and fight!”

So they go. Some return. Some don’t.

Then in the afternoon, you send them out again.

So they go. Some return. Some don’t.

Eventually you look around the camp and realise that you have far fewer soldiers than when you started.

What went wrong? The commander was too eager to fight. He did not ask:

Is this the right battlefield?

Is the timing right?

Is the enemy exhausted?

Do we have enough terrain information?

What happens if the battle goes badly?

The same principle applies to trading Forex.

If you have $1,000 of trading capital, think of it as your army.

You don’t need to jump into the market just because it’s open. You do not need to trade every hour. You do not need to fight every battle. Sometimes the best trade is no trade. The objective is not to fight as many battles as possible. The objective is to preserve enough capital to fight the right battles.

After many years of trading, studying, making mistakes and developing my own ideas, I eventually asked myself a question:

Why keep all of this experience to myself?

That question led me to create KXU Master Forex Group.

My vision is not simply to create another Forex discussion group.

I want to build a professional Forex network where traders can learn, exchange experiences and improve their decision-making.

The concept includes:

• Trading education
• Trading philosophy
• Risk-management thinking
• Trading clinics
• Peer-to-peer discussion
• Master classes
• Trading psychology
• A network of traders who can learn from each other
• A Professional Forex Traders Network

Most importantly, I want the community to encourage discipline before trading.

My philosophy is simple:

First, control yourself.

Then, manage your risk.

Then, understand the market.

Then, decide whether to trade.

KXU Master Forex Group is now beginning a new chapter.

Members gain access to: Member Trading Clinic sessions; Peter Xu’s masterclasses; the Forex Battle 36 framework; A growing International Network of Forex Professionals community; Forex education; Trading Psychology Clinic and Guest Expert Session.

To build the KXU Master Forex Group as a stronger proposition for a professional Forex network + Education + Trading Clinic + peer community.

Membership fee: £250 for the first year —– 500 founding members receive the second year free.

The Founding 500

The first 500 people to become the founding members of the community. These are not simply the first 500 people who subscribe. They are the people who help establish the group’s culture and direction from the start.

As a founding member, you will have the opportunity to learn directly from my experience, participate in the community, join trading discussions and clinics, and connect with other Forex traders.

I want the Founding 500 to become the foundation of a serious community built around knowledge, discipline, experience and continuous improvement.

I have spent many years paying for my education through real market experience.

Now I want to share those lessons.

The journey continues

I started my Forex journey with a phone call to place an order through a secondary broker firm in the early 1990s.

Today, I am building a community around the lessons that journey taught me.

The technology has changed.

The market has changed.

The speed has changed.

But one thing has not changed:

The trader still has to make the decision.

When to enter.

When not to enter.

How much to risk.

When to get out.

And when to wait.

Those are the trading skills I want to share with the members of KXU Master Forex Group.

I don’t promise that every trade will win. What I want to help traders develop is something more valuable:

the discipline to survive, the knowledge to improve, and the judgment to know when to fight — and when to walk away.

If you are interested in becoming a Founding 500, click the link:

https://forexpracticaltraining.com/linkedin-master-forex-group

Or click the icon for ” LinkedIn KXU Master Forex Group ” at the top of the website.

I hope you become a consistently successful trader soon!

Peter Xu
Founder