Sorry for not getting back to you earlier on this one Clint… was out partying in London!
Sounds like a plan! Unfortunately we’ve already got Cameron and whats-his-name… do we really need Obama and whats-her-name. LOL You can certainly take William but hands off Kate! If I was 20 years younger and had an HRH in my title… not half bad that one… definately a keeper! LOL
Sorry to hear about the “HRH” missing from your title. I guess you’ll just have to be content going through life as plain old Sir Robert.
Also, please be respectful when you talk about Princess Katherine. In case you hadn’t noticed, before she was royalty, she started this thread.
LOL… duly noted! By the way over here we DO refer to Pricess Katherine as ‘Kate’… honest! First ‘commoner’ ever to bag the big prize. Wasn’t that long ago she’d have been tasered just for speaking to William! :58: LOL
Hi, Kate
A couple of years ago, I crunched some numbers based on a scenario in which:
• a consistent 1%-per-trading-day is earned and compounded
• one-half of profits are withdrawn and invested elsewhere each calendar quarter, and
• risk is strictly controlled.
Note that 1% per trading day is roughly equal to the 5% per week that Robert refers to. Note also that consistent profits at this level might take you years to achieve, depending on your prior trading experience, your natural trading talent, your ability to learn quickly, your ability to practice strict money management, your ability to control your emotions, and a few dozen other prerequisites.
With all those disclaimers out of the way, here’s how a small account can become a huge account, in the hands of someone who knows how to trade:
http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/26983-goals-timeframes-2.html#post122426
In September, Michael Huddleston, who posts here as the Inner Circle Trader, will begin a Trading Challenge in which he will publicly trade a starting balance of $5,000 up to $1,000,000 in 36 months.
If you do the math on Michael’s Trading Challenge (using the same 240 trading days per year that I assumed in my hypothetical example), Michael will be averaging just less than 1% per day compounded-rate-of-return over the 720 trading days of the Challenge.
For you math purists, the actual percentages work out to: 0.73859% per trading day = 3.7479% per week = 17.573% per month (based on 22 trading days per month) = 484.8% per year (based on 48 weeks per year) = 19,900% total gain over 3 years.
To put this a different way, every dollar initially deposited in the Challenge trading account will become 200 dollars over the 3 years of the Challenge.
[B]These will be real-world results,[/B] whereas my number-crunching was hypothetical.
To continue with the real life examples, I’m currently building my trading career around profit objectives (averaged out) of between 1%-2% per WEEK. While I’m trading part time (working a job to save up money to make deposits) I’ll be happy with the average being in the lower end of that range. But then when I can go full-time I’ll be able to participate in more trading sessions and hope to see myself at the top of that range.
and that’s it. I don’t need to do better than that to earn a salary on par with doctors and lawyers in the top of their field. I don’t care to find out the limits of what I can earn, I just want to be in that range and I want to be there consistently. It’s that absolute focus on a modest objective that is driving my current success.
Before having a consistent method, I’d be chasing unrealistic gains and then would not be able to recover from the inevitable drawdowns. Not many will admit it, but I’d say the vast majority of traders on this forum are still stuck in that mindset. Everyone has a very hard time being satisfied with modest profits (consistently) when they believe there are greater potentials for profit out there. It’s that drive to push every aspect to the max that drives most to failure.
To take that further, once a strategy is consistently profitable, it is not even necessarily a matter of trading towards a set target each week/month. Rather, the profit level becomes more directly related to the amount of time one spends trading. If I go away on holiday, my profits dip as I am not putting in as many trading sessions. But since starting out, I have always felt that once a consistent minimum of 5% pcm return is achieved, then at some point that is the financial future taken care of. In a ‘clean’ trading month, where I am not away, where there are no odd events spiking the currencies etc., then I make a lot more than in a month where I take the odd day off or when other factors costs me trading days. Basic point is, 5% return on a decent account size is already a great return (on the OP’s $50k then that is obviously $2500 in the first month before compounding improves the ensuing months). Then the account grows, and sometimes months come along that are particularly lucrative, and the whole thing takes care of itself.
What I am saying is, 1% a day or so is great, and would give a great return over time, and is certainly achievable, but financial freedom can be achieved well before that level, so don’t get hung up on targets. I think of targets as a minimum threshold above which it is working. For me, that level is 5% in a month. Anything above that is a bonus, but not essential. I am full time, and 5% would give me a workable income. The point is, though, that any account will eventually get to a great level on just that small return.
Extremely impressive! I need to learn and practice so much more before I put real money into this but I am more than willing to learn. Fortunatly for me my natural talents as evidenced by my other hobbies include fast learning, an extreme desire to learn all I can and my natural habit of collecting lots and lots of reference material on whatever subjects interest me.
I also love to crunch the numbers and variables so I can see by your example that you and I will get along just fine. 
I bow to your mastery of this subject and I hope that I can continue to learn more from you.
By the way I didn’t realize about my username making me look like a Kate Middleton wanna be.
My name is actually Katherine Elizabeth and then my last name which is indeed English but not Middleton.
I can see after reviewing this and other threads that setting goals and being realistic is one of the key concepts that seperates your successful traders from those who fail. With that in mind my goals are
To learn all I can about Forex and to understand my own personal tolerances for risk as well as my own habits such as emotionally driven trading that would lead to failure before I would even begin trading and to nip those bad habits before they nip me.
Develop a solid trading strategy that I feel comfortable with and that works for me.
Financially I would like to make $500,000.00 over five years with an initial investment of $5,000.00.
What I would like to know is if there are other goals that I should consider in order to develop the ideal trading personality that is essential to success and if the monetary goal I set is reasonable.
I would also like to know if there is some sort of weekly compound interest calculator and what the mathematical formula is for calculating weekly interest without the aid of a calculator.
Thank you all for being welcoming and supportive of my newbie-ish self. I know that it can be tedious trying to help those that are new but it is much appreciated.
That would need to be compounded at 96% annually.
Taxes will eat up some of that, so to get your goal AFTER taxes, you’ll probably need to be in the 130% range annually.
So, roughly 10.75% a month, or 2.5% a week, or .5% daily.
A .5% daily goal is nicely attainable.
Good luck!
Hi R Carter,
I’m familiar with the email you received regarding your FXCM Ltd account, and I can add more detail to help clear up any confusion.
First, [B]retail forex accounts with FXCM UK (Ltd.) are still segregated in accordance with FSA client money rules, including those with over 10k. [/B]
Where the confusion may be coming up is in relation to professional client accounts. There was a section in the email which stated that if you are classified as a [U]professional client[/U], then your funds are not segregated (again in accordance with FSA client money rules). The FSA specifies criteria for when a trader will be classified as a professional trader in their own classification guidelines on page 10.
Earlier in the month of April, I asked our operations department to compile the number of accounts with FXCM UK which are segregated accounts vs. non-segregated. As of April 10, 2011 FXCM UK had a total of 80,103 accounts. Out of this number, 13 accounts at FXCM UK were not segregated due to professional client classification as specified by the FSA client money rules. All of the 80,090 retail individual trading accounts are segregated, as they should be, according to FSA client money rules. Even though the funds of only 13 accounts are not segregated, they are still held separate from FXCM’s operational funds, and professional clients can still request that their funds be segregated.
Safety of funds is a top concern for every trader in the forex market. You need to know whether the broker you entrust your money with is financially stable and won’t disappear with your deposit. FXCM is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: FXCM), and our audited financial statements are publicly available for you to access. FXCM has no debt and over $190 million in cash. The most recent release for Q4 earnings and full 2010 results can be found here: FXCM - Investor Relations - Press Release
-Jason
In ‘current principle’ box enter your starting capital.
Leave ‘annual addition’ blank.
In ‘years to grow’ add the [B]weeks[/B] you want to compound i.e. 40 (200 trading days a year) or 200 weeks for five years.
In ‘interest rate’ box set your weekly desired compounding percentage i.e. 5%.
Press ‘calculate’ and it will work it out for you… have some fun playing around with the numbers.
Thanks for clearing that up Jason.
Again I am most impressed by the wealth of information that the traders on this forum have. Thank you.
Now for my next question. What time does the London session start? The School mentions 3AM to 12PM but I can’t figure out what time that is in my time. I live near Salt Lake City so I am in Mountain Time. If anyone could figure this out for me I would be greatly appreciative.
Ah… thats a bugger! LOL Mountain time is -7 GMT. So if you want to trade London open (08:00 GMT) your into the wee hours! Sorry about that. But all is not lost… most active time re volatility is London/ New york open to London close (13:00 - 17:00 GMT) Mountain time… -7h… I’ll leave you to do the math!
I am a night owl so odd times are perfectly fine by me.
London GMT is 7AM to 4PM which would mean 12 Midnight to 9 AM Mountain Time then? Hopefully I am converting that right. I never could get the hang of changing time zones. 
13:00 - 17:00 GMT = 1PM to 5PM GMT minus 7 hours would be 6AM til 10AM Mountain Time?
I hope that is right?
Heck it confuses the hell out of me too, what with daylight saving time… where’s Clint when you need him LOL. Ok… its 02:00 here and now. :32:
It is 7:00 PM here right now.
So by deduction weve figured it out to be -7h… not so bad… especially if your up for London/ New York. LOL
Just wait till Clint picks this up… LOL. But we figured it out ok on our own! LOL
LOL. Yeah this Clint fellow does seem to have all the answers. Seems like a pretty cool guy. Just like the real Clint E.