Almost wiped my account

I will stick to 200:1 I’m more of a long term trader, I trade breakouts… I go for 50 to 100 pips per trade…

Yeah you can use 1000:1 leverage as long as you have risk management your fine. So good luck to you and hope you have a profitable trading career.

@Mordengaard

Good work…

However…

think of the most precious commodity you have: your biological time… How much of that did you expend on getting your account back to 250?

What is the financial reward for all the time that it will take to lift it up to 1000? I am also assuming that you have not been able to withdraw anything from that account in order to have all funds locked into your trading: when will you be able to withdraw money to reward your hundreds of hours spent on trading?

Doing something for the love of it is great but if you are to make money out of this you need to think whether you will ever be able to reward your time financially: that takes a lot of capital.

The less capital you have, the less you will be able to pay yourself anything from your trading: essentially, you will end up spending months or years doing it for free, chasing a hollow dream.

The best thing for any of us trying this is: do not listen to those who profess growing 100 to 1000000 in N months, for the road of high leverage is littered with the graves of hundreds of wannabe millionaire traders. Rather, put aside serious savings and consider whether you could save 100000 or more, and then put that capital to work by using the same strategies that you are using now, with the same low leverage, but actually generating a REAL income for you, or even enough to give you something tangible that you can use to buy things in real life.

Thanks alot

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Oh PMH - how sad :worried:

Your post sounds like the unconvinced repetition of “well meaning” received wisdom mate !

It sounds like the rationalisation of a disillusioned lad whose dreams have been crushed by selfish others, in the interests of “good sense…” :roll_eyes:

That loss of yours was 2 years ago mate and in the greater scheme of things it was only the equivalent of a year’s poll tax ! - Hardly World changing ! - stop beating yourself up about it - get back on that horse and ride it !

Take a note out of @Mordengaard 's book here !

Worse still - stop letting selfish others use your mistake as a weapon to beat your dreams to death with !

YOU are worth more than that ! :slightly_smiling_face:

Falstaff,

I teach young people about the music industry and use the same cautionary approach as I have done here: you need a healthy dose of optimism but you cannot just go into an industry expecting success just with a dream and basic skills.

Inevitably having experience of life means that you see the pitfalls of bad decisions ahead of time and that shapes you, no doubt: but to say that warning newbies about the danger of going into something without a plan or the necessary resources is a measure of the speaker’s success or failure is disingenuous.

Most professional traders speak of how deluded newbies are and how hard it is to make money in this business: why do you think they say that? Out of malice? These are people who make a living out of it.

To psychoanalyse my advice in this way on your part is missing the point: anyone who says that trading is easy, that we should just do it for the love of it, and that the dream is easy to achieve, THAT is the person that we should question.

I remain convinced of every word that I typed as an essential piece of advice for someone who has been working for hours and hours on trading at less than a minimum wage and wants to grow that as a business: I teach this to music students as well, that is, growing a business is not about dreams alone, you need proper planning, a realistic assessment of growth, proper skills, and most of all an awareness of whether it is sustainable in the long run.

Spending hours and hours in front of the trading screen to the detriment of a healthy lifestyle or of time with friends (etc.), and all for no income, is not sustainable financially or psychologically in the long run. It is called a paper dream; it will become burn-out.

So you may disagree with my advice but please do not reduce it to just me moaning about losing a bit of money, because I got over that within weeks and it has nothing to do with it. However if you are saying that we should NEVER be shaped by our experiences, then I profoundly disagree because what is experience for otherwise?

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@Mordengaard I am curious, just how high was that extremely high leverage?

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Thanks for the explanation! Much appreciated!

great recovery, well done you. when i lost 50% of my bank i gave up. really wish i hadnt now but never mind im back to try again.

There are some divergences between traders’ opinion. Many suggests not to work with leverage while many traders are giving emphasize on working leverage with proper fund management. And thereby, it is up to your choice but from my point of view, higher leverage can possess higher risks of trading, thereby moderate leverage can be wise if you have short of funds.

Good you learned from your mistake. And please what the size of leverage you used with your the $50 and what leverage are you using now…I still find it difficult to understand leverage. Thanks

Thank you for sharing, this is exactly where I am now and it’s feeling like there something wrong with me. I win today and loss it all the next time I trade. My account has reduced from $200 to $17.
I truly need help on what next to do to keep my wins.

Thank you.

You give the perfect example of not greed while trading and also have control on your emotions.

Thanks for this, really helpful :love_you_gesture:

Funny enough you’re mistaken high leverage to be equal to risk but it isn’t.
Your risk is in your lot size and size of your SL and not dependent on leverage. Leverage is your advantage or edge and you should use the maximum if need be.