After how long trading consistently would you say to yourself you were a successful trader and could make a living doing what you’re doing?
And I’m talking about trading price action not indicator based methods.
Difficult question, i have been trading live consistently for 6 months with out indicators, how ever i probably would want a few years behind my belt before I claimed I was a successful trader
FYI I only started making profit when I finally got rid of the indicators
i make sure my screen is as fresh as a babys bottom every day
dont like looking at poo!! hehe
Personally I�m not in forex for the ego Bull, just the money will do me.
I don’t know if I’m a successful trader or not even though I am trading live and making profits, only time will truly tell, but I considered myself successful the day I started realizing exactly why a trade went my way, and more importantly, understanding exactly why a trade went against me. Knowing why something happened was much more valuable than earning (or losing) pips and not fully understanding why.
I trade with price action and trend lines, and a few other things I draw on my charts, no squiggly indicators or moving averages, or other lagging indicators, and I am trading live not demo. HTH!
Ok…now how much time would you want before you gave up your day job to trade for a living?
Reason I ask is once your trading price action successfully, supposedly you are set up to trade successfully for ever after that. Indicator based trading might only work temporarily but how do we measure ourselves against the ideal?
well personally i lost my job so i sort of landed my self doing forex full time,i had already bein doing it part time b4. however even thoe i consider my self to do it full time, out of my working day approx 3% is spent setting up the trade 4-5% is spent in the trade, and the rest is for educating myself and learning more apart from the last hour as i set up and research any news for the following day
I guess the problem is that a lot of people might think they’re successful only to be dumbfounded a year or 2 later, which is not an ideal situation to put yourself in.
I feel if you are trading price action and not using indicators so much there comes a eureka moment where you start improving and being consistent but that’s still no guarantee you will be profitable in a year. It should be but how can you know?
It’s not just an issue of time but also account size. If you’ve been trading for years and have taken your $100 micro account up to $10000 then you are obviously a successful trader, but you still aren’t ready to depend on forex as your sole source of income.
Depending on the next trade (or next few trades) being winners in order to pay the rent is no better than living paycheck-to-paycheck with a “normal” job.
I’m a full-time trader and I consider myself successful, but if it wasn’t for my wife’s job there’s no way I’d be trading for a living right now! My account balance is simply not large enough yet.
Personally, if my only source of income was forex I’d want to have at least $50,000 in my trading account. That way when (notice I said [I]when[/I], not [I]if[/I]) I hit a losing streak I could dip into my account balance to pay the bills until things turned around.
Sure but that’s because out of the 50k, you have a backup for expenses.
However, if you’re trading 2% risk are you working out a yearly income based on that 2% x however many trades x %age success rate?
I think we had a thread discussion on worst losing streak a while back in it looked like about 6-8 for most people.
I will give you to different instances , I on one hand have been trading for about 2 years. I trade full time now and have excelent strategies to trade all based off price action. I am not succesfull because of myself… I continue to work on it because I know that I am just one atta boy moment away from becoming the next winner.
Second instance I have a freind who trades fulltime since December. He came a cross the right information and had the right mental attitude to succeed at this… He started with 15,000 . traded less than 1% he is now making 30,000 to 50,000 a week. on 2000 to 4000 pips. trading 2 pairs.
I know this because we all trade on the same thread.
But before You get all excited. On the same thread. There are about 6 people who do fantastic and then there are 40 more who have been struggling for a long time. You must have the right combination of things that all click. to do good. mentality is key without it you can’t win.
The point is as so many people have pointed out in the past. The question is irelevent we are all different. Just keep learning and trading and you will know when you have got it. But don’t let a small winning streak let you quit your job. I would put 1 years salary in the bank covering everything including health insurance before I would consider quiting…
So good luck and trade well. Ken Lee
Kenneth Lee, is that 2 to 4 thousand pips a week? I’d like to hear more about that strategy.
PM me your e-mail and I will send you some information with the link. It isn’t on this site and I don’t want to ruffle feathers. If you search my name and the thread I started I explianed some of it in there before, at the end.
. It uses a lot of what Phil teaches ( I actualy posted Phil’s PDF on the thread as relevent information) as areas are defined by 4 hr and dailly charts but also the guys have developed this into a intraday trading as well and with 2 accounts trade in both directions… They use some basic candle patterns and other stuff… The person I mentioned trades all 3 sessions and his goal is 100 pips per session. 1500 a week he doubles this a lot. Trading gbp/usd and eur/jpy.
Take care Ken Lee
I will not discuss this here further as this isn’t my thread… Respect the originator. If you want further questions ask in my old thread, please…thanks
I’d want to have at least $50,000 in my trading account.
i think 50k is to small to trade for a living. you would have alot of pressure on yourself to pay the bills. i personaly make more than that annual and i struggle to keep my head above water, and i am the only bread winner in my house. so for me 50k would need a 100% annual return to keep my head above water. i think that would pressure me to overtrade. i think any more than 50% annual return is impossible to sustain. i know there are people that believe that 2% is not only possible but likely but i disagree heres why.
ok lets say you have a 50k account and you risk 2% per trade with a 50 pip stop loss that is $20 a pip (honestly chump change) are you really going to jum on every half assed setup that comes your way? what about when you experiance drawdowns? will you trade more to make up for the loss?
what if you had a $1 million account and you risked 1% thats $200 a pip on eu that is $400 just to enter the trade. will you still be looking for half assed setups? or would you be looking for grade a perfect setups? i know the answer for me is definatly grade a setups and they don’t come everyday sometimes not in a week (i trade dailys mostly)
the bottom line is if you want to be successful in fx you need money management and you need to be picky.
i forsee myself being a full time trader in the next 2 years or so prolly once i hit 100k but even then i have my other business to bring money in so i can trade with no pressure.
Hi Kenneth, I PMd you, thank you
You bring up a good point, Johnny. For my family a 50k trading account bringing in 50% per year would be [B]more [/B]than we live on right now! I live in rural Arkansas and we have one of the lowest cost of living rates in the US.
The cost of living in the trader’s geographical area will play a huge part in how large of a trading account they need to go full time. 
Not to be a smart@$$, But is 50% return a year REALLY all you hope to get ? I have investments that almost do that… I personally go for a gain of at least 20% per week trading 2%. If my money management skills were better . I could greatlly improve on that. I believe anyone trading any decent strategy with proper MM can do that FULL time. If your sitting in front of the computer a full 8 hr day and not doing that. Keep searching for a better edge. If like me you don’t have good MM. Then trade the higher time frames like Phil’s and take yourself out of the equation. Set it and let it do it’s thing.
But really guys only 50% a year. most people I trade with get min 40 50 pips per small trade and blow that 20% per week away I am a scalper and a lot of my trades are under 10. But still manage over that a week. I am working on holding for more . Just curios I know we don’t want to inflate newbies , but we also should be realistic. Just my 2 cents…
Not to be a smart@$$, But is 50% return a year REALLY all you hope to get ? I have investments that almost do that… I personally go for a gain of at least 20% per week trading 2%. If my money management skills were better . I could greatlly improve on that. I believe anyone trading any decent strategy with proper MM can do that FULL time. If your sitting in front of the computer a full 8 hr day and not doing that. Keep searching for a better edge. If like me you don’t have good MM. Then trade the higher time frames like Phil’s and take yourself out of the equation. Set it and let it do it’s thing.
But really guys only 50% a year. most people I trade with get min 40 50 pips per small trade and blow that 20% per week away I am a scalper and a lot of my trades are under 10. But still manage over that a week. I am working on holding for more . Just curios I know we don’t want to inflate newbies , but we also should be realistic. Just my 2 cents…
ken what i think is that if you have a small account you can risk 2% per 10 pip scalp and if you lose $100 no big deal, $500 no big deal. but if you had a 100k account risking 2%= $2000 you cannot tell me that that wouldnt affect you psychology or maybe if you were like most professional traders I know, the larger there account, the smaller there risk. so if they had 100k account maybe they are only willing to risk .5% a trade. you say 20% a week and that is impressive but imho it is very unrealistic in the long run but hey thats just me, i am more conservative these days and having been margin called a few times it has forced me to obey proper money management.
having said that i would say then different strokes for different folks. Ken Ive read your posts for a long time and I think you are one hell of a good trader so if you say its possible for you to sustain 20% a week into the millions than i have to say God bless you man, take me with you 
hehehehe
my goal is a conservative 5% a week although to be totaly honest ive had 100% weeks too. I say 50% a year coz that is a conservative goal and until somebody can trade as good as you or I they should be risking very little or even none at all.
so iu guess my annual goal would be something like 200-250%
JONNYKANOO, You hit the nail right on the head. With a smaller balance you can take a punt! But pro traders leverage at no more than 2X, 4X times and occasionally 8X max. As a pro trader if you can build your account by 30% a year, year on year; you’ll get a place on any trading floor. On a personal account, I would risk no more than 1% of balance trades and progessively less as the balance grows.
I didn’t say I was there, But we trade interactivelly on the other thread and you can see the results. The major players also have over 5 years trading each. Some over 10…
I agree with you on that , But I don’t think it has anything to do with account ballance more the bigger trades just shake them up. Know a good many traders where $100 a pip is the wall. They try more but it is to stressfull. This is people with Mega profits also… I wish I was with them I know all the rules but still haven’t mastered myself. Maybe next week :rolleyes: I think anyone can get there, It just takes time , You have to find ONE good strategy that fits you then look for others that you can use when your core trading isn’t available.
It is like scalping somedays that is all that is working. Otherdays I kick myself for small gains while watching everyone else make pips in the hundreds. But I think everyone that sticks with it will get to that point and even if you get into the millions your trading account might still only be $100,000 so $100.00 a pip is fine. The key remains the same “HE WHO LOSES THE LEAST WINS” At this game anyway.
Trading a $1 per $1000 we are only talking 40 pips a day. Should be able to do that standing on your head. The only reason it would be more is if you have to makeup a loss. So lose less.
I think we should revisit this issue in a year if we are both still around . But like most when they start making real money they don’t seem to visit Babypips much…
I just feel there should be some encouragement to newbies. It is possible, are you the right guy who knows. But it takes effort for sure it isn’t a free ride.
Anyway Everyone Have A Great Weekend.
you can say to be a successfull trader when you will finish this adventure with more money than the money you deposited at start
about trading for a living i’m able to make something like 500-1000 pips monthly trading daily candles
1 hour a day of analysis and that’s all…
and i live in this way. very good for me
Couple of points in here that I have also read in books are most traders also have 1 member of their family in a stable permanent job.
There don’t seem to be many traders who do this for a living by themselves.
Wouldn’t you say you have to have a backup plan?
The scariest thing is that it is working out now but something might change in 2 years. I trade price action so I can’t think it would be that different in the following years but I haven’t been around long enough to experience the “change” in markets that everyone talks about.