10K new account

[ABDave]

I believe this is my first post here. I have been trading for approx two years. Probably the usual route. Shown Forex by a friend. Acted as my mentor initially. Had a go demo trading. Didn’t do great, but decided I was ready for live trading. Had a go, didn’t blow any accounts, but lost enough money that they might as well have been blown (lucky for me they were small amounts and not life changing sums). Went back to demo trading.

In the mean time I was adding money to a live account each month for my eventual return. That account will be 10K in size. I have since run my demo as a 10K account, to simulate reality as close as possible (though its a demo, so it will never really be the same). I didn’t see the point in messing around with 100K demo accounts etc. While fun, you then treat it like a game and make decisions that you wouldn’t replicate in real life. I think most of us will have become demo millionaires at some point!!

I have worked through Baby Pips school, though I haven’t completed it. I have read multiple books on Forex, and also books on money in general. I highly recommend the Richest Man in Babylon as a short and fun view on money. I have also watched the usual youtube videos and learned lots from some, and nothing from others.

Anyway, I have run my demo for three months as a serious project. I did it in my style. I learned loads from my mentor (no idea if he hangs around these parts), but could not trade in his style for the life of me. He was unaggressive counter trend scalper. Seemed to be successful but who really knows.

I will share some of my demo results in this thread, and also share my live trading from Monday onwards.

Looking to see your thoughts both good and bad. I am an honest guy, and have no hidden motive. My motive is to make money and if its works, share how so others can join me. I am not going to be selling stuff. I have a day job and I intend to keep it. No desire to full time trade though I respect those that can. I want a regular wage coming in to pay my bills, and trade with as little pressure as is possible.

I will add screenshots and other evidence along the way as proof.

I will also include lessons that I have learned along the way, and how I am trying to adapt from them to the better.

Wish me luck.

[ABDave]

Demo so far:

Duration: 3 months

Quantity of trades: 150
=approx: 50 trades/month, 12 trades/week, 2 to 3 trades/day

Profit: £2641
= approx £17/trade
= approx £30 per trading day

Largest loss: £429

Largest profit: £770

Winning trades: 118

Losing trades: 32

Overall increase as a percentage: 26%

= approx: 8%/month or 2%/week

[ABDave]

Lesson so far (nothing new here really):

Smaller positions

Stop cutting trades short

Individual losses tend to be significantly bigger than individual wins

Pick my support & resistance zones better

Drill down to get better entry points

Only trade trending pairs

Don’t enter trade close to resistance area

[ABDave]

Platform: MT4

Broker: Admiral Markets

Leverage: 1:500

[ABDave]

Books read:

50 Pips a Day Forex Strategy by Laurentino Damir

The Black Book of Forex Trading by Paul Langer

Naked Forex by Alex Nekritin & Walter Peters PhD

Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas

The Candlestick Trading Bible by ?

[ABDave]

Just wanted to give a shout out to @The_Baller and @thetradinggod. Don’t know either of them, but respect their ability to follow their own path and share their journey. I have enjoyed reading their posts and approach to trading and life. Funny how the two (trading and life’s journey) are more connected than you would initially believe.

[1odi]

trade a % amount per transaction of ur capital, that should adjust ur average loss&win…
u need practice, stop reading all those books…common knowledge doesn t work, (smart money(banks, prop traders,institutions etc) know that all too well), that s why u have so many get stopped out, price moving against u as soon as u enter etc…u have a good win ratio (hoping that doesn t mean u go for 10 pips with 50 stoploss), try and risk same % of ur account per trade and go for atleast twice the risk(u could also move stop to break even once tp1 is reached and trail the rest).
that should cover your bad days and losing streaks and have u growing the account faster then u could imagine without sweating the losers to much. stay green
cheers
PS> it s a very good idea to paper trade with same amount of money u plan to trade reall acc, cos the data is the same if u watch a live feed…treat that like ur real money, follow ur rules. only thing that may be different when u make the switch are ur emotions stepping in, but if u have a plan and stick to it, u should be good.( and brokers in demo won t tamper with ur spread like they do in real)

[ABDave]

Thanks for the reply @1odi . With regard to the books, I don’t follow any of them. Just bits and pieces. I have enjoyed reading them, and I will continue to buy one a month. More for fun that searching for the holy grail.

I intend to trade a tiny portion of the account. I will then reevaluate after a period, and if its going well, raise the percent, but again by only a small amount.

Ref getting stopped out, I didn’t have that many. 32 losing trades out of 150 and not all of them were stopped. I closed some early, as I felt I had read the market wrong.

Ref the emotions, I have no answer. I have felt these emotions and know what you mean. I had a live account before and made some trades that were way over leveraged. You guessed it, it swung the wrong way. Had some sleepless nights as I was working out wether to cut my losses or hope it turned around. It turned around and I was able to close the trades at a loss, but not a crippling loss. Its a lesson that burned me, and I hope not to repeat. I understand loss is part of the game, but it was the position size that was physiologically damaging.

You were the first person to post on my thread, so thank you for taking the time of your day to do so. I am looking forward to researching the market this evening, ready to place a trade if I can spot a suitable entry tomorrow morning. I normally watch the Handmaids Tale on Sunday night, but last week was the last episode, so I have an hour to fill before bed!!

[1odi]

always place the stop at a point where u think the setup isn t valid anymore, and if it reaches that point ur out(no moving ur stop wishing and praying) take the loss and move on. if u risk say 50 bucks on every given trade but when u win u win a 100 bucks, u can afford to be wrong. if a trade moves ur way take half of it at ur 1to 1 RR, move stop 1 or 2 pips in profit, that way u avoid taking a loss after price innitially moved ur way. i dunno the way u trade, but as a general advice always trade in the direction of higher timeframes, since u have a nice win %, u don t need to over leverage, just do same % risk on every trade, and that will raise the amount of risk per trade after a while. cheers

[ABDave]

Good points. Moving stop loss to break even or more is something I always forget. Once I’m in profit a good amount of pips (it varies depending on how close to resistance), I tend to close in profit, when I should close a part and then leave it to run with SL moved to break even. Always forget, and its an area for improvement.

Im a higher time frame player. No scalping for me. However, another area I could improve in is my entry. I tend to enter in trend direction, but I want to drill into lower frames to time my entry better, to try and become profitable sooner rather than waiting awhile for it to go past my entry. I intend to work on this and that and others points is one of the reasons I have started this thread. To improve and record the hopefully successful journey for others to see with no BS and smoke and mirrors.

It will be interesting to see if my win % remains constant. I am prepared for it to lesson, though I clearly hope it doesn’t

[1odi]

before takin a trade, make sure u can cover atleast twice ur stop till next resist area(if buying). if the resist is too close, skip the trade. i can tell u from my own experince that, taking partial profit and leaving a portion of the trade to run, it will be beneficial in the long run. not every trade will be a home run, but 1 or 2 out of 10 trades for example will run 3 or 4 times ur stop…so that will help u grow ur account faster(plus it s a risk free trade once u put something in the bank and move stop to break even, no risk no emotions).

[ABDave]

Yea, thats the plan. Though plans and reality can sometimes differ

Small positions, no emotion, take small profits one I can, but leave some in to run or hit break even stop loss i.e. no loss.

[The_Baller]

Just wanted to give a shout out to @The_Baller and @thetradinggod. Don’t know either of them, but respect their ability to follow their own path and share their journey. I have enjoyed reading their posts and approach to trading and life. Funny how the two (trading and life’s journey) are more connected than you would initially believe.

It’s all about consistency.

How many threads have you seen on here that started with the aim to turn pennies into millions, 6 months later they are history.

There are tons of people here who can make money from @tradinggod to @1odi to @tommor - the’s ones that make it are usually the ones that stick to their rules and just run with it.

I would say my approach to trading is a very laid back, simple approach - more to do with being able to handle DD and the rest is just enjoying a pizza and getting on with life.

[ABDave]

I go to bed early and get up early. I will place my first trade in the morning. Just been going through some of the pairs. My pick for tomorrow is:

GBP JPY

And I’m going long.

[ABDave]

Double bottom beginning of a reversal on the weekly chart? Bit early to tell, but its near all time lows and support levels on Monthly, weekly, daily, so I will give it a large stop loss to allow it to breath and take the trade.

[1odi]

yeah, i m bullish 2, but i ll wait for the market to make the week s low, ussually monday or twesday latest, pullback consolidation, fake breaks etc to go long, i can t tolerate too much drawdown…if u trade double bottoms, double tops etc, watch out for the spring(fake break down) or upthrusts(fake break up). those are meant to draw traders into the wrong dir and to take out stops, but also those mark the end of a consolidation. also it s good to give some room for the trade to breath, but also make sure ur still targetting more then u risk(cos if u risk 300 pips to make 100 u ll blow up ur account eventually).

[1odi]

fib reject high volume bearish reaction, upthrust(fakebreak) sell off, risk 5% 3positions

broke support, 130 pips with last position and still running. stay green cheers

[GMoore]

How did it go?

[ABDave]

Nice little set up @1odi . My set ups don’t look anything like this. Thats organised and clear. I like it, but i’m not there yet. Haven’t got the IT skills or the platform knowledge yet to produce a screen that looks like that.

However I do think I have an eye for this, and the rest will come because I will work at it.

[ABDave]

Placed a trade at 131.205 after a nice bullish tweezer bottom on the 15 minute chart. I knew I was going long already,I was just waiting for an entry point. If it had turned against me, I would have remained in the trade as it looked good on the Weekly and monthly charts.

Closed it at 132.250

It was a very small position but still gave me £28. I won’t be retiring yet, but I really wanted to finish my first day:

a) In profit
b) with no floating loss

All in all very happy. If it had been a bigger position, I would have closed it partially and let the rest run on, but it was too small.

I am now going to look at the charts and plan day 2.