I’ve been raiding my piggy bank and now have enough to open a mini live account with £500 - still small but a much better start I think
Also I’ve requested tht my broker has reduced my practice account to that amount i.e. £500 - so now I can trade much more realistically and not get carried away with the silly profits I’ve been making !!:rolleyes:
So it’s down to earth time folks 
That sounds a very good plan on both counts, good luck with it!
Nice one, im not quite “ready” for live yet, not for making profitable trades per se, but moreso confidence i think, confidence in what i know, and how to apply it. My aim is to put in 50 gbp with oanda in march i think, starting small, and building up. Then aim to deposit more only when im comfortable, which i think is key to making money. If i dont believe ill be successful or doubt what im accomplishing, im planning to fail surely?
Anyhows enoug ambling, best of luck to you in your endevours, let newbs like me know how your getting on! Its always a good insight.
Be sure to always monitor your margin on small accounts. You will get less leverage with a small trading account, so you will have to shell out more margin money than if you had 100:1 leverage.
Trade with an appropriate lot size for your account, don’t go all-in and lose a quarter of your account on the first trade. Be sure you have a good backtesting program- why walk blind when you don’t have to?
You should be only trading micro lots with that much capital.
Yep yep, 1 mini lot is all you could trade otherwise at any given time. I think with micro lots you could have up to about 15 trades and lose every one of them before you blew out your account. Thats ball parking it with say 30 pip stops in and 50:1 leverage in the EurUsd. I’m sure someone could get you the exact math on it though
Why would anyone trade a live account before they are 100% confident in their trading strategy ?
I’ve never undertood the logic behind such a crazy decision. Presumably its for entertainment value ?
Thank you all for your advice -
I’m still on a demo account, but I like it much better now that I don’t have that too-high balance account to play with.
I’ve done a few trades today and have increased to £549 - I’m very happy with that, small steps …
I have 200.1 leverage on £500 - that’s enough for now ! I only trade small amounts anyway scalping off small profits and building up that way, I don’t have the nerve to go ‘long’ yet.
When I do go live, it certainly won’t be for entertainment value but I will have to build up slowly to a more ‘respectable’ balance.
thanks again all
You cant be a 100% sure about any strategy until you are trading real money. Psychology alone will derail any “sure” strategy that work on demo.
one thing is for sure, trading without any sort of methodology is going to end in tears for the ajority of people.
This stuff about psychology is mainly nonense.
I think you’re wrong on two accounts: about the 100% there cant be such surety in forex only probabs and rates of return (everyone loves perfection but its the charts that cant stay course even for one minute or ten ticks); about psychology its not like guys need some rehab counseling but just a balance between fear and greed which cause very mixed (long & short) feelings in the head and fingers causing one to gain too much or loose some more.
Kitty, I wouldn’t touch 200:1 even with a seventy-bar long trendline, especially with a small account. You made 10% in one day, say with a 3:1 winrate it means you could loose 10% in three days. But its a small account, it still is big leverage considering a trader who thrives on 16% monthly. If its worth anything I’m one of those who think you’re learning everything in record-time, quite impressed.
you do realise u never get grasp of true trading until you jump into live?
unless people have a tried and tested methodology they will be clueless about probability and expected range of rates of return. Worse still they’ll be clueless about what might happen in the best and worst cases. Its completely impossible to trade under these circumstances.
Its precisely this situation that leads to psychological problems you describe because they are trading completely in the dark.
I’ll jump in here and say that i think psychology does play a part, everyones different see, and we operate different to any given stimuli, what you see as a good risk trade i might see as a bad risk.
I say this as last night on my demo account, i placed a trade which was too heavy, immediately i was 2 pound down and it looked like it would wipe the previous 4 days profit. Was it a bad trade, possibly. It worked out in the end mind and i took about a pound back from it but at that moment, my heart sank, i thought. . You stupid man, why did you put that trade on! To some of guys a two pound loss is nothing, but to me blimey, i was a bit worried. So much hard work almost lost.
Psychology is about me leaving those thoughts at the door, to not worry and be confident in what im doing, perseverence, dedication and hard work, surely success shal follow.
Trading is very objective people make it more than it is. Those who cannot follow rules cry and lose money : )
I personally feel that psychology is the biggest single issue with trading. It would be tough for many to argue that the mechanics of trading itself is actually that difficult, once you have sufficient experience. Spotting your setups that suit your strategy, then placing the trade, there is nothing difficult that, repetition makes it steadily easier. But that is not to say that trading is easy. I just think that, once you have put the work and time in to understand what you need to understand to make your strategy work, the psychology can still make the whole thing tough. It never really goes away as an issue, we are all tempted to get ****y some time, or to have a big drawdown and question ourselves, or have to deal with someone who thinks this is just gambling and not a life plan, or whatever the issue is. The psychology of trading affects people differently, but I think that it does affect most traders. If it didn’t, this gig would be a doddle and many more people would be successful at it.
(I am speaking mainly for people who seek to trade full time, here, I do think that there is less psychology to ‘hobby’ trading, unless you are seeking to take it full time).
It’s not?
Funny guy!! But I’m not biting!
Some who follow rules also lose money and cry as objective as it is…
Of course not every trade is a winner unless your scalping 10pips here and there. But losing should not matter if you have good money management. Again rules! If you have a good methodology over the long haul you should be able to see growth in your trading account.