Does it really matter how many accounts a beginning trader blows if he is able to be successful in the future? Everybody has one thing in mind trading, it’s to make money. Now, if one were to blow a couple accounts in the beginning, but move on to making millions later on in their career, who really gives a sh*t?
I don’t understand where you’re getting at here. Because in the end, it’s about how much money you’re making.
I apologize for intruding, but it makes no sense to criticise a millionaire of blowing a few accounts in the beginning when he’s quite clearly made it all back. The question is, you may not have blown any accounts, but how much money have you made? I will be honest, dollar wise, I have not made much as well, only $400-$500 in the last 4 months, but what percentage is that? I started with $200.00USD. But in the end you don’t spend percentages, you use money. So a 300% increase on a $200 account is still useless compared to a 10% ROI on a $250 000 balance.
Now if I could only blow this account and come around to make millions, I’d say it’s worth it.
Yeah, you’re right. Thanks PipBandit. Sometimes I don’t understand how people think… =\ It ends up in a battle of egos and some just lose their main objective. Oh well.
Sure, I can tell you what advantages / disadvantages does have a history of blown/unblown accounts.
Disadvantages of blown accounts:
A blown account is the first sign that you can’t handle risk. That’s a fact then. Because nobody, particularly if he makes money or wants to make it (as you clearly stated for yourself) can make it with blown accounts. Plus a blown account destroys your psycho, your money, you have to fill out more forms (to open another account) (I hate to fill out forms, do you like it? LOL) etc. etc.
And then there is simply the fact that if you did not blow any account in the last years that doesn’t say you can’t do it in the future. The future is unknown. If you falled already for it, I guess it is more likely to fall for it again. It is likely then, that you had some luck. As soon as the same circumstances arrive than that of the beginning, the blown accounts arrive again. I do not say it MUST happen. I just say it’s more likely.
Advantages of not blown acc:
Those problems you don’t have from start, if you avoid to blow accounts. You can show yourself then that you are disciplined, can handle risk to a great extent and you don’t need to sit there in the evening and having hassle with filling out 12 pages of forms. Plus you save your money for getting profits and not taking losses of blown accounts.
Regarding money: It doesn’t matter if you juggle with millions or cents. There are a lot of broken and fallen millionaires. It went up and it went down. No serious institute would hire a lucky number who blows accounts like that frequently others change their underwear. A successful trader is somebody who can handle risk. In other words: No blown accounts. That is a rule in this industry. Look at the bp school and it’s mentioned there as well, I guess.
At least, I posted above some numbers. If you can’t reveal for yourself how ridiculous that is to say it is warranted that you can make 1m or say just 100k out of 1k in one year consistently, I can’t help you. You need then some more experience. Trust me, the markets will show you the truth and what is “right” or “wrong” in investments soon!
I’m an ole guy of investments. I’ve probably seen more than you in my life. If you just try to reach for the profits and don’t look down first, you will earn what you deserve. Those markets have a nice feeling for that.
Then I fly planes. It’s the same thing regarding chance and risk. I wanna fly, but I have to look for the risk first. If I’d compare that with trading, to ground a plane is like blowing an account. I probably don’t have to tell you that this wouldn’t be a good pilot who grounds his plane. Even at the beginning. There is an old saying going like that: There are risky pilots and old pilots, but no risky old pilots, lol. I can assure you, the most grounded planes get grounded by rather “experienced” pilots. There are way less emergencies at flight school or soon after the fresh pilot gets their license. There are also statistics in this field. People become overconfident after around 200-300 hours of pic time. That’s where the most emergencies happen. So, a sign that if a new student in flight school would ground a plane is clearly: He is a bad pilot. If he manages to stay alive after all.
That you can’t recognize this for yourself and have to ask me also shows that some things you missed already while watching too much ict profit hunting. No, I do not throw this to ict, as I know, he teaches also that you must control your risk first. So, ask him and he will probably tell the same as I do. Don’t blow accounts, lol.
I’ve heard that saying (it’s in one of Larry William’s books): ‘There are old traders and bold traders but there are no old bold traders’!!! LOL!!! (I don’t think it was one of Larry’s quotes but someone he quoted)!!!
Alright: as you all know I was up WAY too early this morning so I’ve done my ‘refereeing’ for today. TRY and be nice everyone while I go to bed!!! LOL!!!
The point is not that you need to know how others think (if they think, lol). The point is that you need to think for yourself. But I see you have found already somebody who believes that he thinks for you, lol. So, you don’t need to think for yourself. That’s a good start. LOL! ROFLMAO!
Good nite Dale! Yea, I red that also anywhere. But you can write that a thousand times an those greenhorns of wanna be traders but nothing else than shark food blow their accounts anyway, lol.
Yeah, your’e right with that in general. Good point. I just thought a little further (what I often do), that you could have difficulties to use the same account if it’s in the loss a little. I read often at forums that ppl worry about negative accounts when margin calls drive around. So, that they must pay the negative balance. So, they guess it would be better to open another account (at another broker) and save those bucks, lol.
Frankly, I have no experience here, so I can just write what I red elswhere.
Anyways, it was also just for instance to show that it’s a burden with a blown account. You can also mention the burden to find more capital for funding then. Because if you put your spare capital for trading into an account, it is not very likely, you can fund your account then quickly again. All that is not something what speaks for good trading if you blow accounts.
I’m sure if you think further you may find more burdens with blown accounts than just that. Fact is that if you do not blow an account you don’t have issues with all that.
I could also take other examples. Like cars. Is it a good driver if he crashes his car often into another car or tree? A blown account is the worst you can do as trader. Far worse than let losses run too far, but not into a blown account.
I meant for instance you have 1k left for trading. If you put that in an account and it is blown, then it’s gone. If you want more to trade with, then you most work more to get spare money again. Most ppl are anyways undercapitalized. So, it’s probably not easy to blow accounts and get more money quick.
Regarding fears you are right. In parts. A fear to not jump from the bridge is good. It’s a good fear. A fear that you get injured and then you order insurance is maybe not good, as it is a virtual fear. The insurance can not avoid you are getting injured. Maybe you get some money. But for that you have to pay fees.
A fear regarding a blown account is like the fear not to jump from the bridge. In investments, your base capital is like your cow. You want to get milk from your cow, but you don’t wanna kill your cow. Because with a killed cow you cannot get milk from it. So, to kill the cow is a real fear and makes sense.
Another thing is fear in trades or trading or not to trade or pull the trigger. A fear not to pull the trigger if you believe to see a good setup and your system tells you to file an order is a virtual fear. Not real. So, this is a bad fear.
what reason would somebody have to transfer 10x 100 into blown accounts than just simple put 1k in that account? KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. And save thransaction costs, margin call issues, etc. etc. LOL!
Yea, why would somebody want to jump from a bridge and what if he is swimming. I just told you that to give you a picture what is the difference between a good, healthy fear and a bad, irrational, virtual, sick fear. Some fears are great! If you would not have the fear to jump from a bridge, you would jump. And maybe no matter if there is water under the bridge with sharks or not, lol.
A blown account is the worst what can happen. Take it as it is. Try to avoid that under all circumstances. Save your cash cow. If you cannot do that, you are set to fall. It’s just a matter of time and luck then. Because you can’t control your risk. If you can control your risk, you are set. You can’t control your profit, but your risk. That is the most important point in trading/investments. People who start babbling how many control they have over their chance, are cheating themself. There is NO control over chance. Just over risk. As long as you use stops, good money management and all the other rules to avoid too much risk. THIS is the path to consistence over risk. And if you have consistence over risk, you can just watch what mother market gives you. It’s then - at least - the outcome what mother market wants to give you. As long as you don’t slaughter your cash cow.
[B]ChrisFACE[/B], if it looks like your thread has been hijacked, it really hasn’t.
Michael’s [I]Inner Circle Trader[/I] [B]Million Dollar Trading Challenge[/B], which you will witness in September, will represent [B]the best answer to your original questions[/B] that you could possibly hope for. Instead of claims and anecdotal evidence, you (and everyone else on this Forum, and beyond) will have the opportunity to see it done, live, in real time.
And that will happen, regardless of whether Buckscoder accepts [B]the additional challenge[/B] that Michael has laid down.
If Buckscoder has the stones to put his money where his mouth is — if he accepts Michael’s challenge to a trading duel — then you will have the added pleasure of seeing two traders with very different trading methods go at it head-to-head.
Good morning everyone. I had a good night’s sleep last night for those interested!!!
UH OH!!! NOW you’ve involved one of the BIG GUNS (Mr Eastwood)!!! LOL!!! Hello Clint. It’s not often that I have the privilege of posting on the same thread as you.
Well: it’s nice to see that there was no ‘bloodshed’ overnight (not here anyway but I cannot say the same for my darling index futures)!!! LOL!!! WELL DONE BOYZ err… GENTLEMEN!!!
Uh just one question: this ‘Million Dollar Challenge’ is not by any chance the SAME ‘Million Dollar Challenge’ that ‘reared it’s head’ last year??? I forget now who the poster (member) was but I remember this and there was a whole blog page set up by the guy, then an ensuing argument NOT DISSIMILAR to what’s going on here, and then the blog was never updated and the whole thing ‘fell flat’??? (My apologies ICT if it was not you i.e. I highly doubt that it wasm or should I say hope it was NOT you, but I do remember seeing something along these lines last year so forgive me if I’m wrong here).
And IF I MAY TRY to contribute SOMETHING USEFUL to this thread: I BELIEVE ‘in short’ (can you believe THAT statement coming from me) that what BucksCoder is saying (about blowing accounts) is 100% correct. If you’ve blown ANY account it simply means that you were not ready and had no idea what you were doing BEFORE starting to trade. In other words: you simpy were not well prepared. If I STARTED demo trading for the first time TODAY I’d have ‘as clean a slate’ as BucksCoder. The fact is: THE HUNDREDS of demo and live accounts that I MYSELF blew in the first two years until that ‘spectacular day’ were blown simply because I had not ‘done my homework’. Did blowing accounts TEACH me anything??? No. I don’t believe so. Every wipeout made more MORE nervous on the next account and, unfortunantely, those experiences STILL hamper me to a degree EVEN to this very day no matter HOW well things might be going now.
Entertaining thread, well in a gloves off kind of way. My 2c trying to be unbiased as possible. I could be considered a newbie as I haven’t yet been consistently profitable after 3 years of trying different things.
I went through ICT’s entire video course. What I noticed was the system reminded me of a manual system I bought a couple of years ago. www traderssecretcode comDay Trading System by Mark McRae.
Basically finding a first retracement and looking to trade off turning point at the 68% to 78% fibonacci level reversal to a resumption of the trend. Then alternate price projections of leg 1 to the reversal point to possible targets of 68%, 100% , 121% , fibonacci number %'s etc. Putting a stop loss usually at the 82% or some other arbitrary point. Then basically wait and hope.
I tried it out on demo and kept a record of trades every day. My percentage winning trades averaged about 72% which I assumed on a p/l ratio of 1/1 i would do ok. And it turned fine, gained about $10k. Then I tried it live on a real $20k account. And I was on a high when I made $10k in a month and a half. With similar results. The trades were about 75% profitable with the 25% hitting the stop losses.
Then… there were more losses. The market was showing less clear retracement waves. My winning ratio became 72%, 65%, 61%. My stops kept getting hit. And every time the trade was nail biting. Basically set the buy limit order at the desired fib point and then wait , and wait,…sometime 4 hours, sometimes half a day. Set up a trade at night, then wake up wondering if it was a loss or win. I set my stops lower, and I lost more. One time I got so upset, I removed the loss completely and I lost triple my stop!
Eventually, I lost most of my initial $10k gain after 4 months of trading this method. It was just too nail-biting for me to set and forget and I eventually moved on to something else.
Sure I woud love to trade a million bucks account but guessing it’d be far easier to already have a million bucks to start with. So I guess I’ll never know if I would have made it to 1/4 or half a million account using the fib retracement method. just too nerve wracking for me. Set the limit order, take a valium, and hope for the best!
No, it’s not the same challenge/poster, I remember he was a 20 something year old guy, who I was very interested in him proving himself right or wrong with this, but in the end he didn’t show up here anymore.
Probably the confusion because his name is/was Mike something, I’m sorry I can’t remember his exact screen name, but I had totally fogotten about him already.
Anyway I hope you have another good night’s sleep!
Here’s the thread you mentioned Dale! Lol. It was an entertaining thread you know, one of those that come up every now and then that somehow got derailed or manage to get some heated conversations.
BTW, do you think that these 100k a year traders are gamblers??? :32:
Set the limit order, take a valium, and hope for the best!
Now that’s funny!!! I use Prozac and Xanor myself!!! LOL!!!
Thanks for clearing that up. ‘Mike’!!! Now I remember. I TOO was KEENLY watching what was going on and then ‘nothing’!!! LOL!!! Sorry ICT for even THINKING of putting you in the same category.
Anyway: I’d LOVE to be able to participate in such challenge but, well, ‘ye olde Welles Wilder systems’ simply won’t facilitate those types of gains in a year. Of COURSE: then again I could always start overtrading them again and risking 70% per trade!!! LOL!!! NOT EVEN WITH YOUR MONEY would I do that again!!! LOL!!!
Oh please: do NOT introduce the word ‘gambling’ to this thread I beg you!!! LOL!!! That can ONLY lead to further bloodshed and a thread that MAY JUST overtake my Wilder threads (and even Tymen’s trend following ‘whatever’ thread) in length!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
Edit:
Hmmmph!!! I just checked. My Wilder threads are WAY far away from ‘top of the pops’ now (insofar as replies and views are concerned)!!! After ALL THAT WORK!!! LOL!!! The funny thing is: I’ve managed to detail those same systems on my forums NOW in about five pages!!! LOL!!!
Perhaps you could’ve done better if you had incorporated more than just one tool. Having confirmation from an additional 3 or 4 tools can really get you into some high probability trades. Further add scaling out techniques, as well as loss mitigation strategies (ie. set stop to Breakeven), can really help buffer those losses. Even when the trade doesn’t go your way, there’s usually a chance or 2 to at least take Partial Profits off the table…
