Is 500 % margin level safe?

Hi @ataw

What you described sounds like gambling, not trading. See this earlier discussion about risk management: How much units cost

Each number on the roulette wheel pays out 35 to 1, but the odds are stacked against you. No one would call playing roulette an investment strategy.

It seems as if you might be ignoring your floating losses. How many pips did these your winning trades go against you before you closed them out for a profit?

hi @FOREX.com thanks for the reply

hi im relying my strategy on the rule that never risk money that you cant afford to lose thats why i deposit what only i can afford to lose and since the account is very small i cant afford to use 3% of it or assign stop loss maybe i can put stop loss later if i made profits on the account but i didnt understand why you consider this gambling .

Im sorry i dont understand the roulette wheel concept and i dont like to gamble thats why i rely on my fundemntal and technical analysis for my trading entries.

i closed floating losses up to 100 usd from 20 dollars accounts but those were trading at higher volumes up 0.5 with 150-200 dollar equity so it varies btw 200 and 500 pips . ( which was very wrong and greedy)
thats why if i stick to the rule of having 1 micro lost for every 5-10 dollars might give more strenght to handle market bumps

any advice would be appreciated but please don’t tell me its gambling

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have you looked at the free school here? then again no better lesson is learnt in life than experiencing the disappointment.

As said above, your lot sizes are way to big relative to your deposited balance. Your under capitalized and over leveraged given the market moves. But, your not alone.

To be honest, it is pure gambling, but, gambling can still result in a profit too.

0.5lot on a $200 account, you do the maths

*also, 0.5 lot is ‘typically’ $5 a pip (if we take JPY out). A $200 account gives you less than 40 pips breathing space, less when you hit your margin call. Seems like your misplacing your terminology or maths or both?

What we do IS Gambling - just like poker - but just like poker, there are consistent winners and losers. To play poker well, you need to have and edge and understand the odds of various plays being successful. This is something which we struggle to work out in betting the markets. In poker, you can bluff an opponent sometimes by going “All in” - in betting the markets you can’t do that.

Your strategy of micro accounts tends to mean you will win more than you lose numerically - and in fact you do have a stop loss due to your account size. Whether it is a valid formula for success, depends on whether yoou take money from the account when it is suffcient to fund your next micro accunt, or whether you just let it build up until it is lost.

Also the level you take your “wins” at will be very relevant.

The issue of where to set stops is always a bone of contention, and teh number of times you get stopped out only to watch the market reverse and continue in the direction you forecast is huge (or it is for me)

I tried your system once with real money and had to capitulate at -£1700 - I have never done it again. but I do use a small account and risk perhaps a third or a quarter of it in stop positioning for my long-term trades.

i really enjoy the school here im in middle school right now

i understand that gambling is purely dependent on luck but when i trade i do it on my own analysis thers what i like to think the difference and rely more and certainty of trades rather than relying on stop losses :stuck_out_tongue: [quote=“RISKonFX, post:6, topic:117330”]
0.5lot on a $200 account, you do the maths

*also, 0.5 lot is ‘typically’ $5 a pip (if we take JPY out). A $200 account gives you less than 40 pips breathing space, less when you hit your margin call. Seems like your misplacing your terminology or maths or both?
[/quote]

that was just one time for me and i admit it was greedy and i know m never doing it again

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@Falstaff thanks for your reply and its nice to meet someone whose tried this system before

what i do understand this system must be judged according if taking profits or not well now i m in 450 dollar loss in 3 months time i dont know how much more time im able to continue but each i try to find whats the reason and try to fix it but at the same time i dont mind losing 150 usd per month when it gives the feeling that i might be creating something it varies from one person to another

so this method didnt work what was your next step?

I took th e missus to the Carribean, stopped trading and looked thro all my past trades, where I found that it was down to spreads - without spreads, I was profitable.

I changed my rules to give high probability bets at support and resistance levels and set stops which were sufficient to let “Them” run the stops without hitting mine.

I got a job because I had taken a year out to learn full time how to do this and waited for the time to be right. You don’t need to watch the market full time, if you’re only in two or three times a year, for a month or so !

In honesty, these tiny little bets we can make nowadays and the apparent tight spreads, gives me a lot of confidence.

Basically, you need to learn more and paper trade until you can really do it right ! Sorry :pensive:

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To use any kinds of trading strategies in a demo is really a good decision. It always supports us for avoiding risk when particularly we trade in a demo account. I always used to trade in demo with my strategies and high leverage to see the performance how it works.

Thanks for providing additional details about your approach @ataw

We agree with you that people should only trade with risk capital: What currency pairs to trade in Forex for beginner traders?

But as you and @Falstaff both learned firsthand, extremely high leverage comes with extremely high risk.

Perhaps, it’s time to consider a different approach.

It sounds like you have $150 of risk capital per month. Consider saving this risk capital, and while it accumulates for six months to a year, you can practice a strategy on a demo account that lets you trade with $1000 to $2000. With that amount of risk capital, you can trade with less leverage, and risk a smaller percentage of your account per trade.

That’s one option, OR do as I did and look for less frequent, less risky bets and hit them hard. In the meanwhile, paper trade and learn !

You don’t need to bet 2% if you’re only having 3 bets a year.

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long term investments !

@FOREX.com

thing is what might work in demo accounts at the time of testing and practicing might not work in real accounts , i don’t know that’s my opinion

Market conditions are always changing and traders must adapt to them. The key to make better use of your demo trading experience is to use trade sizes and stop losses that are appropriate for the amount you intend to risk in your real account. See this post for some guidelines on how to size each demo trade to risk 1% or 2% of your theoretical $1000 or $2000 account balance: How much units cost

Yes you could do that with the other 94% of your account which wouldn’t be at any risk during that year :slight_smile:

so what kind of trader are you long trader ? position trader or ladder trader
I’m curious to know

They say there are 3 different market movements, UP, Down and Sideways. :slight_smile:

AS always “They” lie to you There is also “Up and ranging”, Down and Ranging and Sideways and ranging.

Yu can make money in any of those markets, but NOT by following the same old rules. !

Yes you can even make money in sideways flat markets by Sellng Options, but that’s risky.

No one system will make money in all of those situatuions and part of what you need to learn, is how to know the difference and recognise switches !

No ! Gambling is dependent on taking the right odds and betting the right amounts - Successfel gamling is what we aspire to :slight_smile:

I agree if same old rules are good enough then 90% percent of traders will be not losing money only the 10 % are following them
forexample since 90 % percents of traders are losing and Eur/Usd is the most traded pair at forex market then don’t trade this pair
thats my opinion

ataw - At the moment I am long EURUSD on paper only - entry last week 1.1725 Big stoploss Target 1.200 - Around 120 full pips to the good at the moment. (That is bigger than my stop was the other way so I’m 1+to 1 at the moment R/R

Can you see why I took this bet ?

Paper only because I have only been looking seriously at Forex for a couple of weeks after betting DOW for years.

I’m thinking I will really like this Forex !

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Yea i Believe forex is the best out there it will provide you with many opportunities but EUR/USD though its attractive is very noisy pair I don’t like to trade it