[B]yay[/B], no more message ‘[I]You’ve posted a link, a Mod will check whether you’re a good boy before we release it onto an unsuspecting public[/I]’.
I feel so special, lmao.
Regarding Demo Accounts: I had actually heard that live accounts are less ‘choppy’ and generally perform better (technically, I mean), owing to the fact that brokers focus on them, in order not to annoy real-money customers.
And since I have never used MT4 before, I most definitily need some demo time, to get well acquainted with the platform and all its features.
That was the one point I didn’t like too much about ‘my’ broker: the demo account is valid for 30 days only … but once it expires, I can just get a fresh one.
O.
Oh well he is for sure right with compounding, and I’m sure you read also the "if"s he stated there, lol. So far I’ve nobody seen who makes 1000% roi per year consistently. 20 pips a day seems not to be much, but if you start trading with real money, it’s definitely not easy to make every day 20 pips on average for say 10 years. Just one loss and you need to make 40 pips to recover the loss and make those 20 pips. 2 losses in a row and you need 60 pips. You get the picture. 20 pips can be a lot if price goes the other way around. Btw. “other way around”, that’s another obstacle, because if you wanna make 20 pips you must allow some risk. 20 pips risk is not much if you consider spreads included. In fact, to make 20 pips, you have to make minimum 22 pips around, spread included. So it goes - I mean just my opinion …
If it would be that simple and easy, we would all drive Ferraries and live at beaches. So how many ppl do you know who drive Ferraris and live at beaches? In fact, most of the guys who believed in quick riches are not posting anymore on bp. Well then, maybe they all are busy now driving Ferraris, but if I look out of my window there are still the ole cars driving around and no Ferraris with big “fx is a holy grail” banners, lol.
As I said, everything is possible, but imho not consistently for say 10 years. I don’t know, just read the story of Mr. Livermore and he made it from a shoestring to a multi millionaiere, just to climb down afterwards back to the shoestrings. So, even that somebody made a million quick doesn’t mean it’s there forever. Making money is rather easy. To keep the money is the difficult part! I’m also with you that a little luck is needed, particular with that example with order execution.
Then if you look at the few here who make ~ 10% a month (and I guess that’s compounding included already), they work for it probably more than 8 hours a day and paid for it 5+ years of losses in the past plus countless hours of learning and analyzing.
I can say if I make more than 50% a year on average then it’s already worth it. If it’s more great, but I do not expect it. Most hedge funds make on average way less. Maybe if I have done it for 5 years or so and I dunno what to do with one of the several grands I could invest it in one account and go with a high leverage just for fun and then if it makes 100k in a year I can say woooha it’s possible. Albeit I doubt without luck. Or put it this way: If you have already a lot of money it doesn’t kill you if you go with high risk and with this you might have the luck and the chance. But to start with this expectation is imho the account killer no. 1. If you start you have no experience, no trust, no money, nothing. So one must be very careful to keep what he has.
Oh sorry for rambling, just what I think about it. 
Live accounts give you in general more issues than demos. With demos you have no fill problems, no slipping, no nothing. It’s no market, but an artificial signal. So, expect it to become a little worse if you go live and not better.
Re Demo Accounts: ok, hehe.
Re Clint’s Q&A: The reason why I have been so surprised at that statement is Clint has been around the forex game for a day or two and knows how to play it, I guess. That’s why I haven’t disregarded that ‘Item 8’ right away.
The weird thing is, there is no need to make those 20 pips a day for ten years, three years will do just fine …
1000% a year means your account will grow by a factor of ten in only 12 months; and [B]this[/B] means:
Start up with: 50k
after Year 1: 500k
after Year 2: 5m
after Year 3: 50m
This sounds like one of the ‘Get rich quick with trading Forex’ - schemes which scammers always try to sell to newbies online.
Yet Clint is a seasoned and, from what I read here, well-respected and therefore honest trader. So I’m really chewing on that one.
Apart from that: never mind 20 pips a day and 1000% a year; just calculate it with 10 pips a day and 400% per annum.
It’s still a growth rate out of a wet dream.
So I’ve been trying to find the fault in the system … in vain, so far.
I guess compound owns us all, hehe.
Cheers,
O.
Well, I can’t speak for others. I suggest to ask himself. I just speak regarding my experience and I am sure those hedge fund chaps out there also know what they are doing and they are probably longer in business than anybody here at bp and have a lot more knowledge. I just know that I take everything with a grain or two of salt what I read anywhere. Particular if it comes regarding money and if it’s too rosy. No matter from who it was written.
The point with the 3 years is right, but what if you have one year nice returns and give it all back the next year, because reality is not in sync with your trading? Newbies generally take it all too easy and dream too much instead of doing their homework properly, imho. I coded a lot of bots already and thought in the beginning I could make say 2000% a year with a more or less curve fitted bot and data which was not that reliable. Well, right now I am back to reality and it feels much better. Slow and steady wins the race. While 50% a year is already roi in excess, because you will that not get anywhere else from anybody. I’m not saying I’ll limit it to that, tho. However, looking up too much generally leads to overtrading and overtrading leads to more losses and not winners. You can control risk and that’s the only control you have. Nobody on this planet can control the roi. That’s a simple fact. Well, I do suggest don’t take my word. Just check it out for yourself!
Oh, I am by the way one of the seldom “animals” here who never blew an account.
Hehe, yeah, those are my thoughts, too.
I don’t think a ‘system’ like that would be feasible in real life.
And even though I haven’t traded forex for nearly 15 years (after having done it from 1991 to 1997), I have no intention of blowing an account either.
Personally, I think 10% gain per month is doable … and a damn nice ROI, too.
I’ll just ask Clint about this ‘Item 8’ one day … maybe I misunderstood something.
Cheers,
O.
Yes, 10% or maybe even 20% a month is probably doable and I see it also like you. Damn nice roi! Why slaughter the cow who gives the milk? 
I just mentioned that 50% p. a. because if it’s lower then I can earn my money with passive investments which require less work. So, 50% and up is something what it makes worth to trade actively fx or whatever. Something less 25% p.a. would not make it worthwhile.
May I ask why did you stop trading fx that time and let you try after a 10 years break? Got enough money from it or what else?
Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding: I’m not about to go off expecting 1000% return per annum.
As a matter of fact, I guess an endeavour like that would have roughly the same chances of success as flapping my arms as fast as I can can to break my fall from a 300-foot cliff would have, hehe.
My point is rather: why would somebody like Clint, who in my opinion is usually somebody to be taken seriously, state something like that?
Either he really meant it (in which case he by now should have eight or nine digits in his account, hehe) or he wanted to make some kind of point … whatever that may be.
O.
Well as I said, I can’t speak for others and I have no idea. I guess the point he was making was about compounding. I mean we all know how nice it is to calculate such compounding tables. I have several here of my own, lol. And frankly I do not believe that reality comes exactly like planned. Remembers me at those funny folks with their global warming models, lol. That’s why I mentioned you can control risk, but not your return. You might have a “bad” year, even if it’s profitable, but maybe “just” 10%. You can also increase your leverage to get better return, albeit that also increases the risk of ruin. Plus then you have a much better chance if you start with already 50k and much experience than most here who as I said can’t even calculate percent math right, have just 100 bucks to start and try it with a 1000% consistent return. I also do believe that there might be maybe some very few people who can reach that, as you also said already with a little luck involved. Anyways, that’s nothing you can plan. That was my point. I have no issues if somebody makes a lot of money. Why should I? It’s just that it’s hard to plan and then most of those guys who dream much have not even the basics to survive in this business.
Anyways, if you were trading for a couple of years in fx you have more experience than i have, lol.
That depends on the account size, I guess. I wouldn’t mind 25% p.a. on a 100m account, lol.
Huh? ‘Enough money’? Sorry, I’m not familiar with that expression, hehe.
To be serious: I’d stopped forex trading because my ‘real job’ took too much of my time and I wasn’t prepared to spend 2-4 hours (the minimum, I think, if one wants to trade ‘seriously’) after a regular 10-12 hours workday. It was just a bit too much, and I need my beauty sleep, hehe.
Now my ‘real job’ starts to bore me, so I want to discontinue it step by step, and become a ‘real forex trader’.
As I’m a fast learner (or re-learner), I hope to be prepared and ‘fit’ to have a serious go at it within 8-12 months.
Cheers,
O.
Hehe, I have no intention of starting an account with 50k … maybe half of that, for starters and to ‘warm up’ again.
Then, considerably more than 50k to make some money, once I feel secure.
Haha, I highly doubt that. After all, you’re well ‘in the business’ , even coding your own EAs … something I still have a long way to go for.
It has been a long time since I’ve traded, and I have forgotten nearly everything about forex trading. But re-learning something is faster and easier than learning from scratch, I guess.
And, being a businessman, I have no need to learn money management and no problems understanding the advantages and the dangers of leverage and margin.
As I’ve mentioned in some earlier post, I guess I’ll start out with Price Action Trading (intraday), since it needs mainly chart patterns and some indicators … I don’t want to make it too complicated or demanding, until I feel I’m ready for it again.
It’s fun getting back into this business … it’s exciting, challenging and demanding.
And it can produce some pretty nice returns, if done professionally.
I’m very happy to have stumbled on this forum; it was one of the links produced from a google search on ‘forex broker comparison’, probably because of the one or two (sucky) pages BabyPips offers to compare brokers.
From the few days I’m on BP Forum now, I think I can say it is way more productive (and certainly [B]way[/B] more polite, i.e. better moderated) than any other forex forum I’ve seen on the net.
I hope to be here for a long time … first to learn, and later on to pass on some knowledge myself maybe.
Cheers,
O.
Well with that 25% is the same regardless of the zeros. If you invested in something like au in the past 10 years or so that was a nice return of ~ 25% or so a year by just sitting on it. No matter if 1k or 1b. Tax free as well in DE btw. I am not only an SAP chap, I also studied business economics. So I speak regarding opportunity costs. If you can earn 25% with anything passive then it makes no sense to have equal or less return with the same or higher risk and more work in another asset class. Plus then with the liquidity of several trillion dollars a day in fx there shouldn’t be any problems to get an order filled. If it’s the right broker, lol.
So why did you not switch to trading then and leave your job? Was it just not “your thing” that time, or more money at your job or what else? I mean you say you traded fx 6 years. That’s a lot of time even if one does it part time.
It was mainly a matter of what interested me more at that time. In '97 that was my ‘main job’ of Business/Management Consulting.
But now, I’ve done that for quite some time and feel the need for change. In addition, the job isn’t the same anymore.
It just doesn’t really interest me anymore, as it offers very little diversity.
Another issue is getting married next year, in all probability. Somehow the idea of 12-hour days at the office, plus regular week-long trips to other cities doesn’t appeal so much.
Being able to work from home and see wife and kids by simply stepping into another room of the same building sounds nice.
O.
Thanks Oliver, that makes sense! We have another member here, Simon Templar from UK and he had the same decision a while ago afaik. Now he makes some regular income while being at home and he has even time to drive the kids to school. Every now and then he posts something, so maybe if you see him you can ask him about his performance and how he did it.
Yeah, I saw some of ST’s posts … I like his Roger Moore avatar, hehe.
And what he has to say makes sense.
O.
Well as far as I know its Discovery that do it, not sure about the other companies.
They offer a special coastal option.
But anyways…Merry Xmas
Regards to Julius
I edited my first post regarding strategy.
http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/41436-2-74-2740-within-10-days.html#post290897
Happy Christmas
lol, nice news sheet 
Merry Christmas all.
O.