Hi guys.
Quick question on business goals.
Is 10 pips a day a reasonable goal for trading? Easy? Moderate? Hard to do?
How many pips on average can a decent trader with some skills and experience expect to make in a day or week or month or quarter or year?
Thanks for your input.
Best,
With any good system and solid money management I would say averaging 10 pips a day would be very doable. That being said, AVERAGING 10 pips a day means somedays you might lose 20 pips, the next day you make 25, and the next day 30, but you’ve averaged 10 pips a day. Don’t get caught up too much on making a set amount each day.
When the charts are good and flowing, press the charts to make more, if they are crap, walk away sooner to protect profits.
Very sound advice daedalus, and I agree it seems that a good trader could pull this off without too much trouble. A few points:
Personally I would recommend trading for the entire month, and then, and only then seeing if you are averaging 10 pips a day. I think if you do that, you won’t fall into the trap of trying to get 10 pips rather than trying to just make good trades. Doing this can also open your trading options up to longer-term trades, rather than just very short-term trades in an attempt to get your 10 pips.
If you do the day-by-day approach however, really make sure that you control your emotions when you are “behind” or “ahead” of your trading goal. ie. don’t take riskier, revenge trades to catch up to your goal, and don’t take frivilous gamble trades when you think you have a surplus after exceeding your goals.
Sadly, I didn’t pen out these thoughts until recently, so after being up a good chunk of change (far exceeding 10pips/day) over a few weeks based on my system, I took some “aggressive” trades and lost most of it back, because I felt like I was ahead. Hope this helps for you to avoid the same situation, and good luck trading!
This is also excellent advice
its not that hard to get 10 pips a day, if u follw your system strictly and with discpline
sure, but the potential to make 100’s of pips on average is even more appealing…even on bigger lots. It’s all really, quite simple when you get down to it, and you may find yourself making waaay more then your monthly goals of just 10 pips a day.
Thinking that way can potentially put you in the mindset to not be open to the bigger trades that are alive and very well. You would be trapped trying to find those small, minuscule trades and miss out on some of the larger sized moves (330-150-250+). I used to think that way, for but a week or so, then I purposefully put myself in the uncomfortable position of trading with slightly larger stops, setting much larger profit targets, and now things couldn’t be better.
In your defense, there are in fact very succesful scalpers here, and it is quite easy…but you much first develope a feel for the market…which takes time to calibrate yourself to the markets groove. Bascially, it’s unwise to start out wanting to make only those limiting amounts…eventually, as you get better, and trust me, you will get better…you will be able to get away with trading larger lot sizes in return for fewer pips.
Why, b/c your minds screwed on right, you know what its like to make larger pippage, you know your system inside and out, your well aware of the consequences of even a small loss and it will be fairly easy for you to rebound and get back on track.
good luck buddy
For me setting a goal of X # of pips per day as a business goal is not good. i like to conceentrate on minimizing my losses instead. heres why in trading there are four things that can happen.
Hi guys.
Much thanks for all the replies. I’m learning much more than I expected about psychology and a trader’s mentality.
Just to clarify, I don’t intend to use “10 pips a day” as an actual trading goal. I’m more just trying to get a feel for what is possible with FOREX trading (being the newbie I am).
Maybe the more accurate question would be:
How much can a reasonably decent trader (say two to five years solid experience and education) expect to make trading the FOREX? Clearly a dollar amount isn’t the best way to answer this question because that would be proportional to the capital any given trader could put in up front. So I was thinking “pips in a given time period” might be a good way to gauge this sort of question.
Or maybe this is a good way to ask it:
If I begin with $1000 and zero experience and eduction and from there I work my ass off learning and demo-trading until I know a solid system and can “safely” trade live, where might I expect to be in 2 years? In 5 years?
Hard questions to answer, I know, since everyone will be different.
Last shot at it:
Can I be independently wealthy in 10 years if I work my ass off learning to trade the FOREX? Is that a reasonable goal or pie-in-the-sky? 
Best,
Yes you can be independently wealthy in 10 years. Probably much less than half that time - IF YOU COMMIT YOURSELF. Its not an overnight thing, and I think thats something you already acknowledge.
I’ve been trading full time for a couple years now, but i’ve just transfered over to forex for the bigger $/contract swings than the S&P500 and Russell 2000 were handing out. Not to mention both of those have gone ape **** in the past few months and the forex markets always seem to have nice tradeable swings in them.
That being said, since the switch I have been AVERAGING between +40-50 pips a day. But like I said above, yesterday I was +67, today i’m sitting at +12 after 1 trade and i might quit early and do some X-mas shopping, so it all averages out.
Sooo… to answer your question. If you spend a lot of time Demo’ing (not just 2 weeks like every other newbie, only to go live, lose all their money and quit) and really work at this, backtesting setups, trade management, emotion management literally the sky is the limit.
A trader friend of mine trades 100 lot size in the major pairs. He targets +300 pips a month (300k USD) and then just quits and goes on vacation. This month he was done trading by November 4th. If you start small with your 1000 bucks and trade a mini lot (1$/pip) and you can average say 10 pips a day and there are 20 days a month you trade, if you change nothing on your position sizing you will be at 1200 bucks by the end of month 1. Up the size one mini lot for month 2, so now your going to be at 1600 bucks at the end assuming the same profit levels. Month 3 you add another mini lot so you’re going to make 600 bucks, and so on and so forth.
You can be well on your way to independent wealth in no time IF YOU GET YOUR **** STRAIGHT BEFORE HAND. And you take your time, you don’t force things, get ****y, over leverage yourself, etc.
So are you pie-in-the-sky? Don’t ask us. Ask yourself. I know its sounds like all this psedo-zen bullcrap but really… in this game you are the ONLY person who determines your success. Not your boss, your coworkers, just you. It can be a lot of pressure, especially at first, but as long as you keep your eye on the goal and keep your nose to the grind stone there is no reason why the fairy tale wealth can’t be yours. What other profession has by definition no limits on the amount of wealth you can accrue? And no set limit on how old you have to be, or how much experience you need to get paid more?
If i can do it, you can too.
Cheers man!
Thanks daedalus. That’s exactly the assessment of this career I was looking for. 
Get’s me psyched about it.
I’m 38 years old so have most of the young blood, testosterone bull**** worked out of my system at this point. Been around the block a few times, have had 2 careers.
I’m looking at FOREX trading from a conservative, long-term perspective. If I can be a comfortably wealthy, financially independent man by age 50 doing this, then this is the career track for me.
Thanks for taking the time to respond!
Best,
10 pips a day is nothing. I do that in one scalp. And then I do more than one scalp a day!
But then, candlestick trading is powerful.
great answer deadlus :). I couldn’t have said it better me self! No one can nor should tell you if your going to be a success or not, we are not kidding when we say that it really IS all up to you. there is no outside force that will prevent you from making all the money you want…just yourself.
If you commit to trading on a full-time basis, It is possible to do very well for yourself on just a $1000 initial account…making several hundred a month…but then you have to factor in losses and how much time you actually have to devote to it now.
If you hold a full-time job i promise it will be difficult trading anything shorter then 4H…
Hi Josef.
Thanks for your response. This is getting me more and more excited about trading.
I hear you on the 4H trading. My guess, given my temperament and time to devote, is that I will probably enjoy swing trading more than day trading - at least initially. But who can say until I get in there and give it a go.
I really appreciate all the input. This has been a big help in clarifying my direction.
Best,
I’m itchin to read some FX books over the holidays and was wondering if there’s any good introductory books on candlestick trading that you would recommend? I’m starting to think the answers are all in the candlesticks, not indicators or even moving averages. Cut out the middleman, go straight to the market information
Steve nisons candlesticks is a good book.I have that with a few others that would be good for you.If you send me your email I will hook you [email protected]:D
I agree 100% with Tymen, candlestick trading (in my short experience) is a VERY powerful tool. Coupled with 1 (or 2) indicators, it’s more than possible to gain an average of 10 pips a day, in fact, given the right mentality and discipline, it’s probable.
Just my 2 cents:D
Just dont forget that most people fail at this business. Theres a few like you jroxman that are going about this the right way and good luck to you. But never take this market for granted. Its a bit like wrestling crocs for a living
[B]Wow [/B]!..true…true!
I am told also nearly as stressful as defusing a live bomb!
i like the croc analogy, just when you think that you were 100-200 pips in profit …the market can and will turn completely around and take all of it away lol (from a very recent expereince)…luckily I got out at breakeven…stay humble and never believe even for a moment that the the trade your in is a sure thing.
I knew this personally, but it still kinda blows when something like that happens from time to time…sucks even more when you can’t be around as often youd like to catch moves like that often.
What I also learned is that you have to be very qucik and very patient at the same time…like you could be waiting for a setup to occur for a couple of hours to a couple of minutes, but when it comes time to execute a plan, you MUST execute it without ANY hesitation. Chances are, if you have a set plan already in place, it should be very enjoyable to perfectly execute a plan accourdning to plan. This to takes time to getting used to.
Always protect your ass, profits will come, but first and formost always protect your ASS. And try to have fun with this…I sure as hell do…don’t make it a stressfull job for you b/c it’s not like the market gives a damn anyway…
Josef brings up an important point about the work ethic. Just like any other business that you start yourself, if you are bent on doing it successfully, its going to take a HELL of a lot of your time.
I know during my first year I was probably working 80-90 hour weeks simply because I was backtesting through various charts, on different markets, time frames, going through setups once, and then back again four more times to make sure I hadn’t missed anything the first times through. I spent my Friday and Saturday nights in front of charts rather than going out with friends. I didn’t have a girlfriend because I couldn’t afford spending money that would reduce my initial capital. I ate roman noodles and ham sandwiches almost every day.
I’m not saying that this is necessary, but I am saying that is how devoted I was to making this work. I got up a 8, traded through the entire day (I was in the S&P then), took a half hour lunch, took an hour break, then started backtesting for a couple hours, ate dinner, and did more backtesting and had nightly reviews with my mentor. I saw charts in my sleep. By the end of my 2nd month I literally had the price action from the last 3 months in the S&P memorized. I could look at any day and remember how the flow worked and where the entires were. I had to start backtesting further and further back just to get data I hadn’t already seen 18x’s before.
I guess what i’m trying to get at is that its a small business. Just like your business professors always told you, running a small business isn’t as glamorous as you think. You are the person who makes it tick, you don’t go home early, you leave late.
BUT. When you start making it successfully then it all pays off. Except unlike a small business it pays off EXPONENTIALLY and in an UNLIMITED amount. I just look at charts for a couple hours in the morning, in the afternoon if I feel like it, and sometimes in the evening or at night before I go to bed. But it doesn’t run my life anymore. So are the 80 hour work weeks worth it? Hell yes.