Hi all, as the title says. Is it too much to accomplish. I like to know before I start to write a plan for it? Thanks
I do not think so. Its affordable, yet achievable.
What I would plan with $10000?
Daily Target: 50 pips ($100 = 2 mini Lot trade size)
Risk amount = $100 (50 pips)
N.B= I would prefer to enter on High probability trade on H1. Otherwise, I will scalp with 10 pips per trade to achieve my goal.
Good morning.
And welcome.
The answer: yes (it is too much to ask).
It’s easy to fall into the trap of ‘but it is ONLY 1%’!!! I mean: 1%??? What’s 1%???
Well 1% per day is somewhere in the region of (assuming that you’re able to trade 5 days per week with no Public Holidays to worry about although with FOREX that’s not NORMALLY an issue for consideration) 20% per month. And 20% per month is 240% per annum. When you look at it that way: all of a sudden it doesn’t look so easy neither is it realistic. See my point???
And EVEN IF I were to say that it IS NOT too much to ask: there is no way EVER that you are going to make 1% every single day. You will having days that you lose. On those days: you then have to FIRST make back what you’ve lost and only THEN make your 1%. So now on THAT day: you in effect are having to make MORE than 1% just to be able to say that you’ve made 1% for that day. Now its starts getting a little bit more difficult.
One could also argue: well is it too much to ask to make an AVERAGE of 1% per day per week. Again: you’re back to 20% per month and 240% per annum.
Then there is the psychology part. What if you DO NOT make your 1% per day target??? Are you going to continue to trade that day UNTIL you’ve reached such target??? Are you going to be able to NOT ‘revenge trade’ if you’re down 5% on a particular day UNTIL you’ve reached your 1% per day target??? The answer (if you’re a human being anyway) is NO!!! You’re probably not going to have the self control to NOT ‘revenge trade’ if you find yourself in that position.
So ‘all in all’: forget about it. It IS too much to ask.
Now if you’re prepared to ‘take it down a notch’ and be happy with anywhere between 5% and 10% per MONTH ON AVERAGE PER YEAR. Well THEN you’re looking at this realistically. If you can achieve that: you’re looking at 60% per annum at least. And if you’re able to achieve that: the chances are that some months you’ll do even better. But THOSE months should not be considered the norm and an excuse to change your targets or ‘take your trading UP a notch’. And ‘in the real world’: 60% per annum sure ain’t something to be ‘sniffed at’.
Don’t fall for the bullsht adverts that are constantly ‘in your face’ the moment you have a FOREX ‘cookie’ on your PC and are then browsing the web. Don’t fall for the bullsht threads on forums that purport to make thousands per month out of only a few hundred USD. They ‘come and go’ and don’t normally last too long. Don’t fall for the ‘snake oil salesmen’ that will try to sell you automated trading systems that ‘promise’ 20% per month or more consistently even IF they have the ‘records’ to ‘prove’ prior performance. Such records are normally ‘curve fitted’ and ‘cherry picked’.
Obviously: the above is based on a good few year’s worth of experience, knowing what I myself and my technical trading systems are ‘good’ for (5% - 10% per month ON AVERAGE), and my personal opinion. And until somebody can come to me with IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE AND PROOF that they have made 1% per day (even ON AVERAGE PER ANNUM i.e. forget about PER DAY CONSISTENTLY): that is my ‘story’, my opinion, and my advice and I stand by it.
Sorry: I know it’s not what you want(ed) to hear. But that’s the way it is in my opinion noted.
No offence and not directed at you personally in any way: but I’d STILL LOVE to know WHY everybody that ‘stumbles’ across this business of trading thinks that they can do better than people that have been in this business for YEARS (all their lives). Where does the notion come from that they can do better than the likes of the big investment banks with FLOORS of experienced traders with HUGE amounts of capital to trade with???
Anyway: $10 000 in starting capital is really nothing to be ‘sniffed at’ either. Work with it carefully, be realistic in your goals, and you’ll turn that amount into something substantial in a shorter space of time than you think possible. ‘Gamble’ with it (trying to make 1% per day NO MATTER WHAT): it’ll be ‘gone’ in a FAR shorter space of time.
Regards,
Dale.
I’m going to second Dale on this, you need to get the 1% figure out of your head and concentrate on making small gains, improving your performance as you do it. In time, you should be able to make some good money out of this market and please do not fall for any “My robot will make $$$$$ for you overnight” tricks either,
Ah dale, I was wondering why it was so quiet, welcome back.
If you got your **** together I don’t think 1% a day or lets say on monday to wednesday you close out a trade that was 5% I’d say it’s plausible, just gotta pick your battles.
Hello.
That’s not my fault i.e. I’ve been getting the feeling that I’m the only one posting here of late!!! LOL!!!
Agreed. But that’s my point. I’d go so far as to say that 1% per day ON AVERAGE per day is doable if you got your sh*t together. But to ‘doggedly shoot’ for 1% PER DAY EVERY SINGLE DAY WITHOUT FAIL I don’t believe is doable. Hell: I’ve had the fortune to make 50% in a week (with NO over trading and NO breaking of the rules and managing risk) but stuff like that only happens when somebody presses a wrong button at Goldman Sachs or some ‘respected analyst’ (there’s a contradiction in terms for you) says on Bloomberg TV that Germany is about to ‘slide into the ocean’ or one of the ratings agencies ‘by mistake’ downgrades a AAA+ rated bank (and then apologises a few minutes later for the SUPPOSED ‘mistake’). You get the picture. LOL!!! The point is: it doesn’t happen to often!!!
But as I said: agreed. You could open a trade on Monday and by Thursday it may even have made a 10% ROI. No question. It can and does happen (as you probably well know otherwise you’d not be disagreeing with my post obviously)!!! LOL!!!
I guess all I’m saying is that for a variety of reasons: people come to this business with unrealistic expectations. And that’s why I keeping making the joke that ‘soon there will be more brokers than traders’ (and I’m starting to wonder if that is still a joke and not reality given the number of new ‘bucketshops’ that seem to be ‘creeping out from under a rock’ every second day or so).
And in this particular case (thread) take a careful look at the wording: “I like to know before I start to write a plan for it?”. That doesn’t sound like it’s coming from somebody who should be ‘let loose’ with $10 000 thinking that they’re going to be able to make 1% per day (whether it be PER DAY or PER DAY PER WEEK ON AVERAGE)!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
Damn, this Forex thing is such a game 
That calculation doesn’t include compounding, Dale.
1% daily with compounding adds up to approx. 24% per month; and that, again with compounding, adds up to a bit less than 1,000% per year.
Read Item 8 of Honorary Members Club / Q&A Clint, and this post of Yours Truly, discussing the issue with Buckscoder and Master Tang.
Somebody once said that compounding was the mightiest force known in the universe … and he was kinda right.
I don’t mean to say it’s possible, especially over an extended period of time … but read my post I’ve linked above: 3 years of success would be enough, hehe.
Cheers,
O.
I also agree with Dale, my goal is 5% per month and it’s really hard to keep calm when you’ve reached “only” the 4% at the end of the month!
By the way… good luck 
Hi Dale, slightly chaotic times here (away from trading, I mean!), so apologies for not having been as active as normal, during my catch up I have seen various posts of yours to which I would normally have responded (such as mud wrestling (!), which was the best thread of 2011 (I think I agree with you, but CERTAINTY/CERTAINTY1/various CERTAINTY family members must merit an honourable mention!), various others… Sorry, and will do better.
ST
Listen: I can count you know!!! I know what compounding is you know!!! LOL!!!
I just didn’t think it worth the trouble for the purposes of explaining to work out what the ACTUAL COMPOUNDED percentage of 1% per day would be!!! Put it this way: let this person start making 1% per week to start with and I’ll happily do the math!!! LOL!!!
PERSONALLY: I still think we all approach this whole thing the wrong way BUT I realise it’s only because most of us (most certainly me anyway) don’t have the resources. What I’m saying is screw percentage gains and stuff like that. Work out your actual monthly living expenses in USD (or whatever currency you live with) and ensure that you can trade something that moves in HUGE increments on a daily or hourly basis (like the Italian MIB40 or the Spanish IBEX or the Brazilian Bovespa) and ensure you have enough capital so that the risk on any trade that you make is 0.1% (MAYBE 1%) of your account and ‘go for it’. In other words: within a week (depending on how lavish a lifestyle you have) you could easily make what you need to pay the bills and spend the rest of the month working on bolstering your capital at your leisure. That’s why (and I know is pis*es people off when I say it) these ‘straight line compounding Excel Worksheets’ give me Royal ‘pain in the you-know-what’. If you’re trading for a living (this is your sole source of income) then you cannot simply ‘forget’ that you have to MAKE ‘X’ amount to live, withdraw it, and then work with the balance. Anyway: it’s kinda like ‘the sledgehammer approach’ really. Capital of $100 000 or $200 000 (‘the more the merrier’) and it’d be a cinch!!! This business (leverage or not) is no difference from any other business i.e. ‘money makes money’. I mean: with a $1 000 000 trading account and one or two profitable trades on the Italian MIB40 you could BUY A CAR CASH!!! And not a ‘clunker’ either!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
To give my response to OP’s original question (and with apologies for the detour from topic I posted a few moments ago) I basically agree with Dale.
$10,000 is a great size starting pot, and with a decent trading approach will, as Dale said, grow to a very decent sum pretty quickly. Setting out to make 1% a day can, for me, just lead to pressure that can lead to poor trading decisions.
Setting aside compounding for a moment (it is important, but not directly relevant to my point), this equates to around 20% return pcm. Is that possible? Absolutely. I make over 20% some months of the year. However I also have months where I make 10%. That’s fine, I don’t try to force the market to give me more than that if that is all that is available. Some months are quiet (step forward, August!), some months have major recession developments, Japan has earthquakes in some months, I go on holiday some months. So for me, setting out with a fixed target at that level is overly ambitious and can jeopardize the whole project as it can lead to overtrading, forcing trades, seeing setups that aren’t there, all the things we should not be doing. I am not arguing against ambition - most of us, myself included, started trading to make an awful lot of money without having to work for anyone, after all - but I personally think that this target is too specific and too ambitious.
With compounding, 5% will give a great income and grow the account. I would target that, and then love the months when the market wants to give you several times that.
Just my thoughts, this is a personal thing.
ST
I agree with Simon: 10-15% per month can be achieved regularly, without taking undue risks.
And that makes for a tidy profit at year’s end, with or without compounding.
Breaking it down, that’s .5 to .75 per cent a day.
O.
I don’t disagree either.
BUT (and it’s a BIG ‘BUT’): taken in the CONTEXT of THIS thread??? That’s my point really. Much like that other thread where we were discussing just how many of ‘the 95%’ have actually put in the time and the effort??? See what I’m saying???
The alternative would have been to simply say “no it’s not asking too much” without knowing anything about the thread starter’s proficiency or experience as a trader. ‘At face value’: that $10 000 would be gone by next week had somebody not ‘put the brakes on’!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
hello guys,
Thank you for all your advices. I"ll definitely keep these in mind and focus more on trade set up and pips taking rather than $$$ gaining that will cloud my judgment.
Cheers
TN
Hehe, I know you know, you know? 
I mainly started that ‘compounding’ issue because I find it personally fascinating.
It’s nearly like a nuclear chain reaction, which increases exponentially.
While compounding doesn’t gather strength quite that quickly, I still think it’s one of the most powerful (probably the ultimate) weapon in a trader’s arsenal.
So it’s always worth a thought.
Cheers,
O.
See??? Now we’ve ‘saved another one’!!! LOL!!!
It’s only a pleasure longdinhguang (I’m sure I speak for everyone that’s contributed here). That’s what these forums are for. To aid and assist (new???) traders to NOT lose money. Put it this way (well speaking for myself anyway): we’ve (I’ve???) ALREADY lost the money that you COULD have lost so that you don’t have to go through the same pain and anguish!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
Edit:
Oops. Nearly forget. Now if you could just send to us your billing address … (where to send Invoice Number BP007 in the amount of $10 000 USD)!!! LOL!!!
Most people on this newbie forum are asking for more… they are asking 5-10% a day, so you are asking the banks for very little with 1%. Maybe they will respect your modest request and give you $200 000 a year if you ask nice.
What’s your [B]risk : reward ratio [/B]? And how much are you willing to risk on a trade? And are you going to make one trade per day?
Edit: I might add… what’s the average win rate of your strategy? or the percent edge that you have?
How many times do you hear that you should risk no more than 2% on a trade? Well if you want to be conservative then how about 1% risk? or half percent? Now what’s your potential take profit reward? If you are willing to risk 2% on a trade then you better be expecting to make that much at least or more.
The 10000 is irrelevant.
My risk/reward is 1:1 sometimes 1:2 depends on the pair. I use mainly 1 hr chart and trade base on mostly price action plus support resistant. When I first start which about 5 months ago, I used some indicator like SSD, RSI and MACD but I tend to lose more than win with these indicator, so I go back to demo mode and start using purely price action, and determine stop lost before enter a trade, and i start to lose less and win a little bit more with my $500 micro and made about 6% last week but I am going to practice a little bit more and see how it goes for another month then thinking of using my tax return and build it up. It was very nice all of you to give me advice and answer my question. One day if I became a millionaire I won’t forget u guys. LOL.
Cheers
TN