Maybe he [I]is[/I] the real Clint E.
Bravo, Sir Robert and Kate
You have it figured out.
[B]Kate,[/B]
Since you are good at number-crunching, here’s a project which — when completed — will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about what’s happening in the forex world, according to [I]your[/I] wristwatch, in [I]your[/I] time zone.
Pull up this post — 301 Moved Permanently — and convert all of the GMT times listed there to your time zone, which is currently MDT (GMT-7).
The resulting list of MDT times will be valid until September, at which time everything will become chaotic for a few weeks as some countries change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time, some countries change in the opposite direction, and some countries remain permanently on Standard Time. Oh yeah, and then there are the Russians, who decided just this year to remain permanently on Daylight Saving Time!
If you’re a glutton for punishment, you can drive yourself a little crazy calculating all the changes coming to the Mountain Time Zone in September, October and November, based on this schedule:
FALL 2011 — key change-over dates
September 25 --- New Zealand will go onto DST
October 2 ---- southeastern Australia will go onto DST
October 30 --- U.K., Ireland, Europe, and Mexico will return to standard time
November 6 ---- the U.S. and Canada will return to standard time
Or, option 2 (strongly recommended), just wait until September, when I will walk you through it, week by week.
Enjoy your number-crunching.
Anything worth knowing is worth at least an attempt to figure it out by yourself and if you should fail turn to someone far smarter and more experienced. That of course would be you Clint. 
Besides one of the best ways to ingrain information is to try to figure things out on your own. Of course having the base problem and solving equation for solving it set up for you by a genius doesn’t hurt at all.
Current Principle - $5,000.00
Weeks To Grow - 200
Interest Rate 5%
= $86,462,904.08
In otherwords too good to be true.
The figures don’t lie Kate… start with $1K and then you’ll only have $17m! LOL!!!
In all seriousness, it demonstrates that compounding your account even by 1% a week is still the preferrred way to grow an account rather than relying on over leveraged trades. Now theres just a small matter of a consistantly profitable strat! :53:
Kate,
The math is correct. I hope that it has convinced you that if you can learn to be a consistently profitable trader, you can make some serious money trading currencies. That’s a big [B]if.[/B]
Now that you’ve seen that the math doesn’t lie, it’s time for you to learn how to trade.
Set a series of modest goals for yourself.
[B]First goal:[/B] 20 consecutive trades with an average profit per trade = 0% of account balance.
In other words, get good enough to make 20 trades such that, overall, you have covered all your spreads, and you have lost NO money.
Easy, you say? Show me.
[B]Second goal[/B]: 20 consecutive trades with an average profit per trade = 0.1% of account balance.
In other words, get good enough to make 20 consecutive trades such that your account balance after trade #20 is 2% greater than it was before trade #1.
Notice that there is no mention of time — days, weeks, months — here. You are not racing the clock. You are not trying to beat a deadline. You are striving for consistency.
[B]Third goal:[/B] ----- you get the idea.
It’s a long way to 5% per week.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao-tzu, 530 BC
You’re at the beginning of a thousand mile journey.
I completely agree with you and I realize the need for consistency. I have several practice accounts and I am trying to figure out what trading strategy works best during which trading sessions and what currency pairs I prefer to trade. I know I must sound mental but I have bought several notebooks that I have devoted to writing down what I am practicing in each account so I can look back at that data and try to develop consistency and make adjustments to my strategies as necessary. Hopefully with enough time and effort practice will make close to perfect.
Apart from that I do have some new questions for you Clint if you care to oblige. I know I must be driving you crazy with all of my silly little newbie questions but I am smart enough to realize when im speaking to a master trader. As such I would love to make myself a spaniel at thy gate.
My new questions are
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What should I look for in a broker.
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What leverage do you use.
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I saw some debate on the broker forum section and I want to know what the pros and cons of working with a foreign broker are. Although I am an American first and foremost I am in a position with my job to potentially move overseas to Scotland and I realize that brings new things to consider if I am going to trade. Also I am fluent in Japanese, Chinese, German and Korean so if there are overseas brokers to consider who only deal in their native language that won’t be a problem. I am a linguistics major.
Wow. I hardly know where to start.
I guess the beginning would be a good place to start.
I think I know why you are compartmentalizing your practice into several accounts (although I never did it that way, myself). I think you are trying to study the entire “forest”, as well as all the individual “trees”, all in one gigantic, comprehensive survey.
Be careful of information overload. Be careful of analysis paralysis.
There are fabulously successful forex traders who know far LESS about the nitty-gritty details of the forex market THAN YOU KNOW already. And yet, they make the kind of money trading this market that would make your eyes water.
All those nitty-gritty details obviously matter a great deal to you. It’s in your nature to find out how everything works. I understand that, because I’m that way, as well. But, keep in mind that, while your personality and your temperament may need to know all that stuff, [B]most of it won’t help you trade profitably.[/B]
Hopefully…practice will make close to perfect.
Not likely, unless you consider a success-rate between 60% and 80% “close to perfect”. This is a game of probabilities. You can be wrong 40% of the time, and be fabulously successful trading this market. It all depends on what you do when you turn out to be wrong, and what you do when you turn out to be right.
More on this subject, a little further down.
I know I must be driving you crazy with all of my silly little newbie questions…
You sure are. You’re driving me right up the wall. (Just kidding.)
I would love to make myself a spaniel at thy gate.
We’ll have none of that here. There are no gurus here, and no disciples.
We’re all learning how to get better at this game. And we can all learn from one another.
What should I look for in a broker.
Financial strength, effective regulation, honesty and integrity, transparency and openness, convenient access to customer service, a user-friendly platform and charts, reasonable spreads, a large menu of available currency pairs, an account-type which fits your requirements, a minimum opening deposit which fits your requirements, quick and convenient ways to deposit and withdraw funds from your account, high leverage (low margins) if your trading style/strategy requires it, the ability to trade with EA’s or robots IF that’s your thing, freedom from the FIFO rule IF that’s your thing, the ability to hedge IF that’s your thing, and probably a dozen more.
After you open a live trading account with the broker you have selected, you should start to feel increasingly comfortable with the relationship. If your sense of trust in your broker does not grow with time, take that as a red flag.
What leverage do you use.
7:1 is as high as I go. 4:1 or 5:1 is more typical for me.
I am in a position with my job to potentially move overseas to Scotland…
On the subject of overseas brokers, you apparently are aware of the “Going Offshore…” thread, here on the Forum. I would suggest that you ignore all of that, for now.
As long as you are living in the U.S., find a good U.S. forex broker for your first live account.
The great brouhaha over the CFTC’s onerous over-regulation of U.S. retail forex brokers shouldn’t affect you at this stage in your forex career. Initially, at least, you won’t need high leverage; you won’t need a hedging capability; and you will certainly be able to live with the FIFO rule.
Check out IBFX — they’re almost in your backyard.
My personal favorite (for U.S.-domiciled and regulated brokers) is FXCM. And I greatly prefer their Trading Station II platform to MT4.
If your job takes you to Scotland, consider moving your account to London. If you start out with FXCM here in the U.S., it will be a cinch to move your account to FXCM-UK. But, there are other brokers in the U.K. which you should consider, as well.
U.K.-domiciled and regulated brokers offer some significant advantages. They are free of all the nanny-state regulations imposed on U.S. brokers by the CFTC; and yet, they are rigorously regulated by the British FSA, and that regulation includes segregated customer accounts (a personal issue of mine).
I am fluent in Japanese, Chinese, German and Korean
You’re an extraordinarily well-educated person — far more educated than I am. And your education (and, I presume, your career) are based on subjects which require and reward precision approaching perfection. Which brings us back to your previous comment about “perfect”.
Unfair as it may seem, there are actually careers which do not equip one well for the world of trading. Engineering (I’m speaking from experience now) is one of those, and linguistics may be another.
I doubt that you could be very pleased with yourself if you screwed things up, linguistically, 40% of the time. But, if you can adopt the proper mindset, you can be highly successful as a trader, taking bad trades 40% of the time. Don’t underestimate how difficult that can be for a precision-oriented person.
Okay, I’m done.
Have a super weekend.