Expectations

[pazdpips]

gambler;4005
How much do you all expect to make this year and based on; hours put in/system/experience/bankroll etc..?

Gambler.
Can I make a suggestion? Do the babypips tuition course (highly recommended to all) and open up a demo account with any of the reputable brokers available on and offline. Then give it your best shot! You should soon be able to see whether or not you are going to boom or bust. However, in spite of its "simplistic" look, Forex trading is one of the hardest "easy" ways to make money.
The only thing I would put forward is that you open your Demo account with the same amount of virtual cold hard cash that you are willing (or able) to lose with a live account.
I appreciate that you want a quantifiable answer on "how much" but there are just too many variants to give you a solid answer. Every trader is different and some appear more successful than others. After two years of part time trading I am still learning - and still looking.
I also would be very wary of anyone in the Forex world that tells you that you can make a 6 figure salary with just a couple of hours a day trading or that you can just "set and forget". I bought one of those systems once - and my wife is still taking it out of my pocket money.......
So, when you start, I wouldn't mortgage my house to open my first "live" account - but I do wish you all the best in your endevours though.

[ramrocket]

Originally Posted by senaka7

I trade 20 hrs a day covering all three market sessions every single trading day and usually I fall a sleep on my keyboard.

senaka, you do trade alot. Do you trade Tokyo then London then NY sessions?

[senaka7]

Originally Posted by ramrocket

senaka, you do trade alot. Do you trade Tokyo then London then NY sessions?

yes. I start 1/2 an hour before the Tokyo open and finish 1/2 an hour after London close. I exclusively day trade GBP/JPY sometimes GBP/USD & GBP/CHF.
I know, working such long hours sucks. But I have my cable T.V and the treadmill next to my computer. I recently replaced my hi-back office chair with a nice comfy sofa.. so my wife can watch t.v sitting next to me while I'm on the computer
Luckey I dont have kidz yet. My wife hasnt asked me for a divorce yet,may be she likes the $$$ signs on my screen.

[beachtrade]

Hey Gambler:

Great thread and yes, your questions are extremely relevant. Great traders and great poker players do the exact same things when it comes to taking risk. Good poker players consider things like EV and Pot Odds before and after getting into a hand just as good traders assess "risk/reward" before taking a trade.

Just like poker, what you bring to the table to begin with sets your risk parameters (for instance, you wouldn't bring a hundred bucks to a 10/20 table and expect to last long). With that in mind, you simply cannot "go to the Forex table" without understanding what the limits are. In Forex, this equates to knowing what a pip is worth and how much to risk. You get to decide for yourself what your risk tolerance is but in the beginning, it should be very, very low.

So, what can you expect? You should expect to lose. It's the price of admission. There is a saying that goes, "first you lose, then you lose less, then if you hang around long enough, you consistently book gains."...something like that. If that sounds grim, just think of it as tuition and be willing to pay for your education. Start small so the lessons feel more like lessons and less like torture sessions!

One word of caution about benchmarking your success on $/hour. Market hours are not the same as "poker hours." In other words, staring at a screen for 12 hours in a 24 hour market will not yield a similar result to banging on the locals for the same period of time in a cash game. There are "best times" to trade - not so with poker. In keeping with the poker vernacular, I would focus on percent of "bets won/lost" and correlate those against size of win versus size of loss. 2%/Week of your bankroll isn't a bad goal...some might call it aggressive but I think it's achievable.

Last, I know you didn't ask this but since you are a poker guy I'll offer this: there is no such thing as a "best hand" in trading that applies universally. One man's "Pocket Aces" is another man's 7/2 off in this gig. In short, you are stuck paving your own way and finding the trading style you like best. No easy answers.... The good news is that if you find the answer that works for you, that's money almost no else can duplicate or take away from you - you only "river" yourself here -

Good luck!

[pipcollector]

Hi gambler,

I've been trading FX close to 2 years now. Like many others, I spent my first year learning from online resources. I dedicated my entire waking hours learning whatever I can get my hands on. However, after 1yr with no success I finally decided to get a proper education by doing a course.

As a member of this course, it was a pre-requisite that we double our demo account before trading Live.

I can tell you right now that I've achieved this. It took me 3 months of practice before I fully grasped what was taught, then 3months after that I managed to double my account. I've gone live now for 2 months and my results remain consistent.

I think too many people get caught up in searching for the best trading system/method that they forget about their business plan.

Here's a brief look at what we are expected to achieve consistantly after doing the course:

3 Trades per week
3% Risk per trade
60% Winning percentage
30pip risk
45pip target

If you do the maths, we're targeting 60pips per week which equates to 6% return on capital. Compound that over 3months and you'll get 100% return.

To answer your question gambler.........if you're able to pull in 60pips/week consistently then you'll be able to turn a $5k account into $100k in a year. Everyone can laugh at my post, it's fine by me, I've got nothing to prove. The stats are there, you can do the maths yourself.

How much time do I spend on the market each day??......... I watch the market for setups from UK open up to US open , which is roughly 7-8hrs / day. Most of this time is spent doing other things around the house anyway.

Cheers

[rhodytrader]

Originally Posted by pipcollector

3 Trades per week
3% Risk per trade
60% Winning percentage
30pip risk
45pip target

I want to take a moment to point something out here. I'm not in a position to either affirm or reject whether these numbers are accurate or not. I'll assume they are. The more important thing, though, is what they represent.

Traders have a tendency to get wrapped up in a couple of specific measures of system performance. They are the win % and the reward/risk ratio. Notice that this system has a 60% win rate, which most folks probably wouldn't consider super fantastic. It also has a reward/risk ratio of 1.5:1, which again probably doesn't excite too many people.

Here's the deal, though. You have a system with an edge. It combines a better than 50/50 win rate with a better than 1:1 reward/risk ratio. This particular system has a per trade expectancy of 15 pips (60% x 45 - 40% x 30). Most importantly, it generates a relatively good trade frequency.

Long-term success in trading means coming up with something that works for you and applying it at much as possible. That puts the law of large numbers in your favor and just about guarantees positive results.

[genghisclown]

Hi gambler,

As you've probably already determined, the answers to your questions will be very different depending on who you're talking to. As the school here teaches, everyone has their own expectations, situations, and mindsets. There are lots of conflicting ideas, opinions, and systems, and most of them can probably make you money, if you work the system right. As in gambling, the key is in how you assess your risks and manage your money.

I suspect that many of us who have graduated the school are still getting a feel for what we can expect from the Forex. Personally, I probably need to go back through it a few times to relearn some of what I've already forgotten (due to some family affairs, my eductation was interrupted a couple of times). So, while I have certain personal goals and expectations, I haven't finished flexing my wings and finding my limits yet.

According to some math I did with profit-to-loss ratios (PLR), I should be able to expect something on the order of a 3.3% return on volume traded at a 2.5 to 1 PLR (with arbitrary trading decisions). Does this mean I can't lose? Of course not. It's abstract math. While I've had very good results with my practice account, I just got chewed up and spit out this week because of a few big news items that hit. The week before that, I did quite a bit better than 3.3%.

It all depends on the individual, his experience level, and what he is comfortable trading with.

[ahefner33]

Originally Posted by senaka7

yes. I start 1/2 an hour before the Tokyo open and finish 1/2 an hour after London close. I exclusively day trade GBP/JPY sometimes GBP/USD & GBP/CHF.
I know, working such long hours sucks. But I have my cable T.V and the treadmill next to my computer. I recently replaced my hi-back office chair with a nice comfy sofa.. so my wife can watch t.v sitting next to me while I'm on the computer
Luckey I dont have kidz yet. My wife hasnt asked me for a divorce yet,may be she likes the $$$ signs on my screen.

haha dude thats awesome. My g/f goes crazy when I spend so much time at the computer learning about this stuff. We even had dinner one time at the computer desk.