Hello everybody, and thanks for creating this awesome community
The question I have is this: I have been doing my homework the last couple days and ICT’s strategy of only netting a ‘measley’ 20 pips per week seems to have really struck a chord with me. The problem is this: during my last two days of playing around with demos (although not foolishly), have netted 230 pips on my first day and this morning I have already netted ~160 pips.
Now I know this is ‘just demo currency’, but it is still the same currency pairs which I am trading. I have been studying markets and finance now for about a year very intensely, and also major in Economics at a pretty high-ranking university, so this stuff is really not new to me, and my strategies have been really simple, trying to hop on trends as they come out of consolidation and also buy within ranges of currency pairs.
However, since I am new to Forex trading I really have no frame of reference as I have nothing to compare this ‘success’ with. After reading ICT’s strategy about only 20 pips a week–I feel a little confused. Am I just having a ‘big fluke’ or can a smart trader actually consistently log 100+ net pips a day?
Anyways, I am very happy to have found Forex trading, as I spend a huge portion of my time already studying markets and economies while on the computer, so to find an activity that allows me to profit off of my knowledge and hard-work without having to change much of my routine is a huge blessing! And don’t worry, I am not looking to make huge risky trades and lose my capital chasing ‘big dog’ status. My understanding of Forex trading is far more rooted in reality (with much thanks to ICT’s noobie thread).
I could open a demo account with a random broker right now and open 100 micro lots just for the lulz and after the end of the day if the currency pair appreciated by 100 pips i’d be up by 10000 pips.
There is no such thing as a “100 micro lot position” on trading platforms. Technically speaking i would be up by 10000 pips in the above scenario. Just mull it over, if i spread out my 100 micro lots over days,weeks,decades etc. how am i supposed to get the total pips aside from getting the net pips for all 100 micro lot positions. That’s not the point though >_> .
Well like banky said you’d technically only be up 100 pips, but those pips would have been worth 100 x’s more. With that said, I think most relate to what the schools says is successful…make pips, keep pips, repeat.
Hm well then I would have to recalculate the amount of pips I had actually won. In essence, I had several micro positions open so it was appearing that I was winning, say 40x3 pips, when considering your logic I would really have only earned 40 pips on 3x the volume. However, this would also effect my pip losses which would then have to be reduced. I was simply on the Metatrader 4 application from forex.com which showed a ‘2__’ pips profit.
Also, when I started the day yesterday I was not using any stop losses, simply because I was just toying around for my first time. However, the trades I left open overnight last night had stop losses. Still, I went long USDCAD and had about 70 pips by the morning.
If most traders work to achieve 20-100 pips a week, with a reasonable (2%>) account risk, then I would therefore assume that earning 20-100 pips a week can actually be relatively profitable? (depending on initial capital of course).
I think you’ve misunderstood, ICT aims to get 50 - 80 pips per week, but of course can be hundreds, there is one technique he suggests that you can use to net 20 PIPS a day when the setup arises, maybe it’s this you’re thinking of.
I remember well my 1st trade - just like the OP, this has to be the easiest thing possible - I was trading the FTSE during LO, made the equivalent of 36 pips in the first 10 mins -
I hit the button to bank the ‘profits’ on my brand new demo a/c - this is easy street - I could see it all in front of me.
Only now, when I’m older and wiser, do I know why brokers spend thousands of dollars on demo platforms.
Am I correct in assuming that this is a international forum and that the US isn’t the center of the world? Nevermind, let’s say I open a demo account with a random broker right now and open 99 micro lots just for the lulz and after the end of the day if the currency pair appreciated by 100 pips i’d be up by 9900 pips.
Don’t try this at home kids :57:.
It doesn’t really matter how i spread them banker928… .To reiterate if i spread out my 99 micro lots over a 100 pip range day i.e.: open 50 micro lots at the start of the day, then 49 in between the 100 range.
Like i’ve said technically speaking (i.e.: if i linked my account to a generic site that records trading performance) i would be up by 7450 pips this time. HOWEVER, this is not the way one should approach this matter. Personally, i subscribe to this school of thought:
49 micro lots = 49.49% of total position
.4949 X 50 pips = 24.745 pips
50 micro lots = 50.50% of total position
.5050 x 100 pips = 50.5 pips
Total = 75.245 Pips
But that’s not what i wanted to say
Basically,
Don’t measure success in pips, because using it as a sole metric means jack without risk adjusted return.
Good Luck and Great Pips to All, except Banker928.
jk
Somehow whenever I start trading again after a long break like a couple of months, I make about 70-120 pips a day and it feels so good. This year in April, when I was back in the game, I started making more than 400 pips a day for 3 consecutive days. Consistency? No! What if I had made just 20 pips every week since last year when I started with $1000? Answer: $2000. What do I have now? $150.
For you to be up 9900 pips, in my opinion, you would need to buy at 1.0000 & sell at 1.9900. Regardless of how many lots you bought, you can only be up however many pips the price moves by.
If you said to someone that you made 9900 pips on the EUR/USD in a day, they would just think that you were a fool. If you said you were up 100-pips, no one would bat an eye. You could put it down to semantics but really, it needs to be put down to common sense.
What ever happened to saying “When Pigs Fly”…which is far less likely than this feller falling out of his boots! I mean they’re not even tied on!.. Bad example…lol.
Baz, reread my post pls. I don’t measure it as 9900 pips, but technically speaking my net pips gain is 9900. Thank you.
From this statement i can deduce that you do find merit in this idea only if it is spread out over decades. How is it any different if i just spread them out over equal intervals in a day? Or really, just open them as fast as i can click my mouse. There’s not a significant difference. It’s essentially just a more condensed version of the same scenario.
I think the reason why people have a hard time accepting the 7450 pips number is because they think like this:
total trade size = 99 micro lots = 99,000 * .0001 = 9.9 /pip (assuming the cross currency and account currency is the same)
9.9 * 7450 = 73755 units in account currency :o
[B]no, no, no.[/B]
Remember that we opened 99 individual micro lots, and 7450 pips is the AGGREGATE pips won by all of the individual micro lots.
therefore total units = 1 micro lot = 1000 *. 0001 = 0.1/pip (assuming the cross currency and account currency is the same)
0.1 * 7450 = 745 units in account currency :13:.
All this back and forth is really tiring and unproductive banker. Just go to myfxbook.com and do it yourself. The mods just cleaned this up while you were away. I’m not in the mood to let this to turn into an ugly flame war again. “Arguing on the internet is like running in a special olympics, even if you win you’re still retarded”
No banker, my accounting beliefs are in my previous post. The post with the okay face meme. The reason why i use 10,000 pips was to serve as a hyperbole, because it is not uncommon for people to be up in pips but down in absolute gain. I was trying to make a point. Also, Mrs.PipnRoll , purplepatchforex posted while you were gone. You can check the cached version of babypips to find out what they posted. I think they also removed one of your other post with the one sentence.
I get the strangest feeling that you were trying to dig my own grave for me. If you entered 100 micro lots at 1.3 and got out at 1.34, you could just repeat what i did in the post with the okay face meme.
100 microlots = 100% of position
100% x 400 pips = 400 pips
[B][I]Like what i’ve said in the okay face meme post, this is the school of thought that i subscribe to. It’s how I do my accounting.[/I][/B]
In this example the positions just happen to be opened concurrently so the formula seems redundant. However, my point still stands that [B]technically[/B] speaking you would be up by 40,000 pips. This is evidenced by the fact that trading performance sites also support this notion. Just give it a rest banker, i told you this was unproductive.
