Myth or fact - doubling money in a month?

I would imagine such a question as been asked, or at least pondered, ad nauseum by newbies. There’s so much “talk” on the Internet about “double your money in 30 days with this or that software”.

While it’s obvious one cannot depend solely on software, or signals, or robots to do this, is it truly possible with the proper education and preparation to double your money in a month? If it is possible, why aren’t the greatest investors trillionaires (i.e. from $1000 to $1 trillion would be just 30 doubles)?

Call me naive, but would be interested in hearing from those with experience. Thanks.

hi renner,

yep, i doubled my live account in a month :smiley: - trouble is i lost the lot in 2 days :mad:

theres a lesson to be learned here methinks!:o;)

I’ve heard it said that doubling in 6months to a year is reasonable if you’re good. but as a noob, you’re not that good. I know, I am one too. But some day you could get that good. And that beats heck out of the stock market eh?

learn everything you can practice a lot and shoot for 20 pips a day and you’ll be surprised how far that gets you.

20 pips a day
Thanks - that is a wonderful reality check…:slight_smile:

20 pips a day, still seems to be stretching it. My goal would be more like 4-5 pips a day. Even that, though, at a margin of 100:1, each pip would be a 1% gain/loss of the initial investment; for a 50:1, it would be 0.5% gain/loss. That would be a substantial gain in a day!

I’ve got my stop set to lock in 60 pips on gbp/usd right now. my best trade so far. :slight_smile: I know some one who averages 80pips a day. I think 20 is a reasonable goal.

some people will tell you no some one tell you yes… really up to you - if your good enough then it is all possible - if you cant do it in demo then you cant do it live - i can double every 3 weeks or less. The larger your account the harder it gets in practice - but my best run has been $100 to $6000 in six weeks

i have been trading full time now since late february ( just over 7 months ) and yes i have doubled my account within a month several times

i started with �400 and i now have an account balance of �4,865, i have also made several withdrawals within that time as trading is now my primary income

i risk no more than 4% per trade which i believe is perfectly reasonable risk management

i trade nothing more than naked candle charts with a few support and resistance lines,trendlines and fibos here and there

please bear in mind i have almost 3 years experience now, dedicate many many hours a day to trading including waking in the night to monitor and adjust positions sometimes

so doubling your account is entirely possible but i can assure it is alot of hard work and you will most likely blow a couple accounts to begin with as i have done but it is now paying off

Yes, possible. Sustainable? Probably not. You are right in noticing the lack of trillionaires and this should tell you something. There are many reasons why it is not sustainable, here are just two:

  1. Getting fills for large positions is hard and you will see slippage. This will erode profits.

  2. The psychology of a 20 pip loss when each pip is worth $1,000 is phenomenal. One 200 pip loss might only be a 2% (or 4% in some people’s MM) loss but it’s also a large 4bed detached house. That’s hard to swallow.

I got a better one, I tripled my 1st account in one week, and lost it in a day :smiley:
Some expensive lesson! lol

I believe it can be done, but it’s not a sensible goal. In fact you’re likely to fail if you set that goal as you’ll be overtrading to try to reach it.

I believe that if your account balance hasn’t decreased by the end of every month, then you’re doing pretty well since most people blow themselves out within just a few months. Not losing money means you’re doing better than 85-95% of your fellow retail traders.

If you learn to trade well, the money will come by itself.

The best traders can’t double their money every month because the market can’t swallow such huge trade sizes without moving against their positions. Once you get to a really big size (think hedge fund) your muscle is enough to move the market. I know they all say the forex market is to big for that, which is one of many lies the system sellers and brokers try to peddle.

Also, when your account is huge, you probably concern yourself more with minimizing your risk than with trying to maximize your profit.

Remember that your goal also depends on the time frame you’re trading. I trade 4H and Daily charts and 4-5 pips would only be a dollar or two for me. My trades routinely run for a few hundred pips or more.

It’s possible that I can get 500 pips and make less money than you did earning 5 pips. Just keep that in mind when you’re comparing your results/goals with other people’s. :slight_smile:

I know this probably has been asked before but I couldn’t find anyone making this specific question: Is it realistic to expect to make $500 a month with 2-3 years of experience in trading.

It depends on your account size. If you have $25,000 then you shouldn’t have any problem making $500 per month, but if you have $1000 then it’s going to be impossible. :slight_smile:

i’d say its very dependant on your skill level, market knowledge, trading style and risk tolerance.

i personally target at least 10% a week and have been easily hitting this target almost every week for the past 7 months, however my trading style is very aggressive and i like to combine both swing trading and scalping although i still keep very strict money management of no more than 2-4% equity risked on any one trade

also there are the more conservative traders (usually with bigger bank balances) that will target only 10% or so a month, i believe their trading styles are usually longer term and keep risk to a very minimal
maybe phil can elaborate on the above for us a little more?

$500 a month is easily achievable assuming you have the 2-3 years experience that is but you will first have to determine what type of trader you are and how much you intend to trade with

lee :slight_smile:

I think that a much better goal than trying to double your money is simply to just increase it.
Forget about monster targets.

You never know what is around the corner -
sickness, accident, unexpected expenditure, family problems, funerals, car repairs, unexpected bills, interuptions to your trading schedule and much more.

Stay realistic!! :wink: :wink: :wink:

Yeah, I’m one of the conservative “keep risk to a minimum” traders. I trade 4H and Daily charts, and pick and choose my trades very carefully. Historically I average 10%-20% per month (after I learned what I was doing!!). That number used to be closer to 20%, but the ranging markets have temporarily knocked me down to single digit per month returns for the last 3 months. :slight_smile:

Another thing to consider is the time you can devote to trading. I’m guessing Profitforextrader puts in a couple hours per day trading, and/or is at the mercy of his price alarms all day and night, but I only “work” at my trading about 15 minutes per week.

One way isn’t better than the other, they are just different styles, and the outcomes reflect the amount of time you put into your trading.

a very accurate guess phil, yes i often put in several hours a day, sometimes wake in the middle of the night, i do just about anything i can to maximize my profit whilst still keeping a reasonable risk tolerance

this is particularly true during the early months of the year when i had a very small balance of only �400 and was determined to do whatever it takes to reach 5 digit figures and after 7 months i am finally there, although as my account balance is increasing i plan to begin to decrease my screen time and even my weekly targets making trading more sustainable over the long term whilst still maintaining a decent and ever growing monthly income but this is proving to be harder than expected as trading has become more of a passion than a profession, making it extremely difficult to tear myself away from the screen at times :stuck_out_tongue:

lee :slight_smile:

ProfitForexTrader, with results like that I was going to ask what you do. Since I still consider myself a noob I like to find out what others are doing that works. But I see you started some other threads so I’ll go take a look.

im planning to start another thread on one of the psychological aspects of trading that had a huge impact on my results, look out for it soon :stuck_out_tongue:

lee :slight_smile: