Need Advice: Small Balance Trading

Hello again fjl3

I will try to give you an example (sample) of some of the performance of the so called world champions in trading & investing.

World Top Investor Competition

As you see the returns are not that impressive, even someone like this (considered a world champ for 3-4 years in a row)

Invest with Andrea Unger on Forex

made a return of over 600% in 2008. That is less than 1% a day (compounded). You realize that your goal is 12% daily, putting in mind you also want to withdraw every month, which (as Clint mentioned) takes away the power of compound interest.

Look, i m not saying it is not possible. Anything is possible and i admire your motivation and determination. Yet, it is not harmful to draw a line between “comfortable, easy goals” and “stressful, difficult goals”.

I personally started serious trading after 22 years experience as a stock market strategist. Being a CMT for 15 years i had the illusion making 1000% a year will be a walk in the park!! I wish it was that easy, it isn’t.

In time i learned to adjust my targets/goals in line with my performance, and i had to accept the reality as it is. Today, I feel comfortable trading the markets accepting whatever they offer, and i m glad the ego crushing part is mostly over by now. The hardest part is being honest to yourself, the sooner the better, so you stop wasting time & money. Once the gap between dreams and reality is closed (closer to reality dreams), profits will take care of itself!

ps: by closer to reality dreams, i m not saying that further away from reality dreams are not achievable, i m only saying the first is easier to achieve.

You cannot survive in forex market with small balance PERIOD. So if you have any plans to earn from forex then you need to have a big capital. Don’t compound to achieve big capital you won’t reach this goal very easily.

Is that so? What have you based this nonsense on?
There are many traders on here who started with small accounts and survived. The key is setting sensible targets and not going for stupid, high risk, targets and strategies.

Exactly right. People have done it, and are still doing it. It just takes time.

Yes, absolutely!

As GP00053 said in a post a long time ago, it is not about balance SIZE:

if you risk 10% on a trade, that is possibly too much regardless of the size of your equity, for example:

10% of a 500 unit account(Pounds/Dollars etc., choose your currency) is 50 units;
10% of a 1,000 unit account is 100 units;
10% of a 10,000 unit account is 1,000 units.

So, if you had an account of 10,000 units (say, Dollars) instead of 500 units, would losing 10% hurt any
less? At 1,000 units (say Dollars) lost on that one trade, you would go from 10,000 to 9,000 in one go,
and would only need another nine such trades to zero your balance…

As EddieB says, the key is ‘setting sensible targets’…

Cheers.

To make $300 / week (or $15k a year) while using proper risk management and position sizing, you’ll probably need $75k-$100k. With $500, you’ll definitely blow up.

But if you’re interested in turning your $500 into a large amount as quickly as possible, I’d recommend studying the Kelly formula. It’ll calculate your optimal position size (or bet) to maximise your gains. This link is an online calculator. Replace “Gambling Bankroll” with “Account Size”, and “Odds offered” with “reward vs risk”.

A Kelly Strategy Calculator

A few years ago I tried to do what you did, i.e. risk big with a small account. But there are dangers in the market that can wipe you out, even when you think you’ve taken appropriate precautions. For example, you might bet 20% of your account on a trade. You leave it open over the weekend, and price gaps against you on Monday’s open, way beyond your stop loss. That 20% loss suddenly becomes 40%. These things happen.

Thank you for that, Kevin LaCoste…

and, just to make our newbie colleague FJL trust us (as being real people), I have taken the liberty here to

dust off those interviews that Ananais did with me and you here on Babypips:

Kevin LaCoste: 301 Moved Permanently ;

PipMeHappy: 301 Moved Permanently .

Enjoy!

I will read these as soon as I get home from work, thanks for sharing.

No worries!

If you are trading with small capital, then keep your profit target small as well. Its simple as this, if you aim high with small capital then you will lose your capital also.