This is not the way I would like you to learn trading. Do not spend more than 4 hours staring at the charts, you’ll go blind. More importantly do not trade all day. It will kill your account before you knew it.
I stare at my charts all day doesn’t mean i trade all day, typically i get entry signal once maybe twice a day. All i am saying is that i have the time to learn all there is to know about forex, all I’m worried about is if 5% draw down is normal. I believe i will do better this December as i believe i know enough to trade profitably. I’m just thinking of targeting smaller amount of pips instead of following what i hear about letting winning trades run, there is no such thing, price just reverses eventually
‘[I]Letting a winning trade run[/I]’ should always involve using a trailing stop; that way you can let the trade run as far as it would and guard against a reversal at the same time.
Alternatively you can just manually move your stop-loss to break even / 50% of original target / original target / and so on.
Cheers,
P.
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. (Colin Powell)
Don’t quit your real job – you are going to need ALOT more investment capital before you can start making trades to make a living. With $500 dollars you are going to get a margin call QUICKLY if your positions go too far into the red.
Ask yourself how much you are realistically looking to make in a given year and according to your risk tolerance, do your math and set your limits on the percentage in profits you are looking to make. I say a moderately aggressive figure would be 10% of your principle and allow the money to compound. So on $500 you are looking at $50/month * 12 = $600 - not enough to make a living.
[QUOTE=ForexMnstr;426855]The only difference between demo/live … MONEY MANAGEMENT … GREED … you should consider one thing … which is … take control and reach your goals[/QUOTE
MONEY MANAGEMENT OF COURSE!! just like i learnt in the school----i see forex trading as a marathon not a sprint…I took a total of 49 trades in the month of November with a draw down of 5%, yes i know what you re thinking–“i suck” not to worry, i have adjusted my strategy and mindset, by this time next month I’ll be posting my account balance(hoping to be in the green)
I completely disagree unless you can proved me otherwise. These live accounts are trend following, which essentially “letting winners run”. If you can outperform these accounts in your live account in terms of pips gained at the end of next year, December 31, 2013. (pips will be measured, not growth because we all have different lot size traded), then that would be the time that I will agree with you.
There have been a few good thoughts in this thread, but to pick up on this one issue - personally, I would recommend keeping your risk per trade constant. For me, I risk 1% per trade, every time. You can obviously pick your own figure, but I would recommend keeping the percentage risk constant across all your trading. This makes it easier to monitor your results and build up backtest data for your strategy - say you place three trades, risking 1% on two and 2% on the third. You will skew your results whichever ones win or lose, in my view.
But at least as importantly, I don’t see the logic behind varying the risk per trade. If you find yourself risking 1% on some trades, but then 2% on trades that you are ‘more sure of’, why did you take the ones about which you were less confident? I think that the route to successful trading over the long haul is mechanical execution of a proven strategy. So if you get a setup that suits you, trade it, if you don’t, don’t. Varying the risk to suit the trade suggests that your confidence in the setups you are taking is not consistent, so for me there are some trades in there which you are not sure of - so in my view you should not be trading them.
In terms of the original, drawdown question, it obviously depends, as others have said, on what you risked to get that drawdown.
Anyway, just my thoughts, some will agree and others with disagree, but I strongly feel that consistent risk is an important part of the route to consistent gains.
hi fxturtle,
i looked at you forexfactory page and your ferf are impressive, well done and wish you to keep it that way in the future!!
i wanted to know if your share also your trades on the mql5 community (something similar to zulutrade but also more focused on EA and automatic trading)
cheers,
G
Looking at Turtle’s factory pages I noticed something that’s worth pointing out for the OP. Both of those accounts have drawdown figures above the 5% figure you’ve experienced. One is at 6.2, the other is at 12. As a testament to Turtle’s trading prowess, even with both of those figures, both accounts are profitable (and nicely so!) so it all comes down to money management in the long run!