Has anyone started with $1000 or less and grown it to a mature figure?

Beginner Questions
1

I am new to forex but have been playing around with the FXCM $50k budget demo for the past month. I have since grown it to $75k with basically guessing on the charts and playing around with different combos.

I know this is pennies to what some of you have accomplished, but with no finance/investing education other than one course I took last year in college, I guess this isn’t bad.

Is it possible to have success in micro accounts with an initial investment of $1000? I am not looking to live off of this, but to have some fun and hopefully grow it into a large number that I can trade in a larger account.

Sorry if this sounds naive, I don’t have any experience in this stuff and am trying to self teach myself as I go.

2

Why not? How does it matter if you start with 10 dollars or 100000 dollars?

All you care about is your money managment and your percent gain.

I recommend using Oanda for precise position sizing.

3

Hey bud,

It’s kind if late here, so I’ll have to keep it short.

The short answer is yes, and I have my own personal experience to back it up. Started with $200USD, didn’t really care if I lost it, I just imagined it was tuition fee for trading, currently up close to $700. Monetarily, not much at all, but percentage wise, it’s a decent amount, I’m sure there are many others here making much higher ROI’s, but I would say I am fairly new to this industry as well, and I have no formal education either (going to university this fall actually).

Also I just want to point out, do not demo trade like that, having such a large balance will just create bad habits, it’s unrealistic to start with $50K and so you’re emotions are not there and you’ll make trades you would never even consider with your real, hard earned money. I’d say open a small live account, that way you’ll understand the psychology encountered while you trade.

Also, most would say that any formal education is more or less useless (I would disagree), since school does not really teach you much about trading in specific.

Hope that helps!

Regards,
Clark

4

It is possible to grow £1,000, but it will take time. The more aggressive your approach, the higher the risk. Advice:

  1. Open a demo account with £1,000
  2. Journal EVERY trade, asking yourself why you took a trade, when, how and what happened
  3. Keep at this for 3-6 months, see what your ROI is
  4. Use your journal to learn from your mistakes and build patterns (eg bad habits, early exits etc)
  5. Research and learn as much from multiple sources during this time.

Forex is not an easy way to make money, in fact it’s an easy way to lose money. Good luck.

5

I ll be short too…

under $1000 there are few opportunities to find reasonable spreads for growing your equity.
(note that a 3 pips spread is aprox. 6% of each risked amount paid in fees)

Look for a STP broker perhaps, they will give you fairer spreads.

6

Dude… What size lots are you basing that on?

Whatever they are, they aren’t appropriate for the account size.

One DOES have some options in lot sizing. They should exercise them;)

7

Hey, you are completely right. Perhaps was my comment too general. I am talking about 0,01 lot size with 1:200 leverage. This is a common offer amongst european brokers for mini accounts. This is a beginner forum :wink:

This is why 2 pips STP with 500$ account could be interesting. I find optimal value for the money in a $2,5k account 0,8 pips and 1:100 leverage. There you are just paying 0,8% fees.

8

Like Tang said, you must be trading huge lot sizes for your account… the spread hardly makes a dent in my account… maybe 0.1% of my equity…

9

Obviously if you have a monster account, the spreads are small related to the total equity, I would rather relate the spread to the real unleveraged risked equity, in order to avoid confusion, wouldnt´t you?

Let me then explain my example completely for two cases, mini account and standard account.

a) $100 account, 1:200 leverage min trade size 0,01 lot, 3 pips spread (very common with european retail brokers)

Trade example, 0,01 Lots $1,000 trade volume, ($5 equity)
You are paying for the spread $ 30ct, this is to say, 6% of your equity in the trade

b) standard account, $2,500, 1:100 leverage, min trade size 0,1 lot, spread 2 pip (very common with european retail brokers)

Trade example, 0,1 lots $10,000 trade volume ($ 100 equity)
You are paying for the spread $2, this is to say 2% of your equity in the trade.

So, the higher the leverage and the spreads, the higher the fees, and the harder it is to make profit.

Please tell me that you agree with these simple calculations :wink: and then we can handle more subjective topics.

Best,

10

Hey Jean Hules,

Yes it’s possible. I turned $700 into $15 000 in six months ‘once upon a time’. Sounds good huh??? (That was my LAST $700 that was ‘left over’ after MANY thousands lost prior to that let me make that clear). I then managed to raise capital (I was SOOO GOOD wasn’t I???)) and lost about $80 000 over a period of two months (and went even further downhill from there)!!! LOL!!!

The point is: YES it is possible. As a matter of fact: I’d go so far as to say that it’s a certainty IF you implement just three rules: MONEY MANAGEMENT, MONEY MANAGEMENT, and MONEY MANAGEMENT!!! I never implemented MONEY MANAGEMENT when I turned the $700 into $15 000 so the gains were grossly inflated and unsustainable (unbeknown to me at the time) and over a long period of time could never have been consistent. After I raised the capital: I never implemented money management either (WHY SHOULD I HAVE at the time as I was doing so WELLl)??? I just took bigger and bigger risks is all.

GET THE PICTURE!!! LOL!!!

Being undercapitalized (for the instruments that you’re trading) is a ‘sure fire way’ of losing your money which, in around about way, again, is MONEY MANAGEMENT!!!

So again: YES it’s HIGHLY possible and PROBABLE if you implement MONEY MANAGEMENT!!!

I know how painful it is to trade a tiny account and make $0.01 per pip (per point in my case i.e. I trade equity futures and commodities now not spot FOREX). But don’t let it get you down. Look at your PERCENTAGE GAIN on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. THAT is what counts when you have a small account (actually it counts on ANY account size). What you’re looking for is SLOW and STEADY and SUSTAINABLE gains. Get that right CONSISTENTLY and you’ll take $1 000 to ‘who knows where’. Ignore MONEY MANAGMENT and OVERTRADE your account: you’re ‘done for’ before you even start.

Regards,

Dale.

11

I’d say I’ve heard many stories where someone starts with a relatively small stake, then they take HUGE risks with it because they simply don’t care if they loose it all. Most people can put together $1000 in one to three months, depending on your living expenses, so if you blow it, its not going to make you hungry.

Then, assuming they’re on a hot streak, they can run it up pretty nicely. Once they hit a certain size, ‘something happens’ and then they either lose it all or they cut back on size in a major way and grow at a slower pace. Seems to be a pretty frequent story I keep hearing over and over again.

12

Hello,

Long time ‘no speak’!!! LOL!!!

But you’ve ‘nailed it’ in your post. ‘Something happens’ for sure to everyone (even floor traders who have been at this for decades). What that ‘something’ is??? Who knows. I personally think it’s overconfidence that ‘kicks in’ as well as the ‘logic’ that BECAUSE you now have SO much capital you can afford to take bigger risks having the false notion that even if you lose you’ll be able to recover very quickly. This was true in my case anyway in 2008.

Also my in my case: believe me when I say that was the LAST $700, that I mentioned in my previous post, that I had access to anywhere in the world by that stage so it DID matter if I lost it but in a very odd way, if I think back on it now, I’d lost so much before that that I’d stopped caring so in a roundaout way I kept breaking every rule in the book possibly because I thought, well, if this goes, ‘thats it’ for me ANYWAY and, well, then, like I said, after six months of nothing but sheer luck and trading as IF I had a million bucks to spare, raised capital and because I’d done THAT well up until then the logic was ‘why change anything’!!! LOL!!! The markets eventually gave me the ‘why’ VERY quickly!!! LOL!!! When sub-prime ‘hit’ you could short just about any ???/JPY pair you liked and ‘bet the farm’ and you come out a big winner. But then the markets calmed down, hit their eventual bottom, and, well, ‘the rest is history’ as they say. Had I been implementing MONEY MANAGEMENT and LIMITING RISK: SURE I’d not have made so much in such a short space of time BUT by NOW, with the capital I was trading after that six months’ ‘winning streak’ (it wasn’t trading i.e. it, in hindsight, really WAS a form of 'gambling) by now I’d HAVE the office in New York, the limo, the motorised yacht, and mabe even an island somewhere!!! LOL!!! But then again: the conundrum (I THINK that’s the word to use) is that had my gains in that six months NOT been THAT spectacular: would anybody have been interested in my trading funds on their behalf for monthly gains of only somewhere between 5% and 10% per month??? I’ll never know I guess.

And another thing (for the thread starter): I say to BEWARE of the advertsing!!! I (and everyone else) sees these advertisements (normally with a nice ‘skirt’ showing for a bit of ‘eye candy’) where they say 'I turned $1 000 into $6 000 in just two months and so can you (if you buy this / my course). It most defintely CAN be done. Once, twice, maybe even three times, but the time WILL come where you will wipe your account out in one trade using ANY method that has enables you to turn $1 000 in $6 000 in just months!!! Of THAT you can be VERY sure (and that is, of course, if it’s not s simple scam to start with)!!! LOL!!!

Regards,

Dale.

13

Yes, it is possible to grow any initial amount to a mature amount. Depend on individual definition. I started with $250 and grow my account to $1,978 within 6 months. I once have a forex account with Alpari UK with initial capital of $250 too, then greed & emotion come in and in no time I see my trading balance to just $7. I also once have FxPro trading account with initial capital of $2,000 after failing with Alpari UK account. I plug-in an EA (robot) to trade my account. Every week I will be able to withdraw from my account $500 but within 3 months the account bust as the robot failed to recognize market reversal and continue to open multiple position against the trend.

Most importantly here is trading discipline, money management and keep your trading simple and under control. If you stick to it, it will surely make money.

14

yes. It is do able. It is how it should be done.

Not deposit a small fortune to make a living out of forex.

15

depends on your trading.

I dont have any comments on those who take 1 to 3 % risks on their trades.

I take more than that and I am doing fine.

I dont trade with any indicators. I only trigger a trade when I know for a fact where the price will end at the end of the day.

10% is my normal risk factor.

60 pips is my target.

Once hit, doesnt matter if its in one single trade or two separate trades, I recalculate again and take higher lots with my new balance for a minimal 10%. I have had trades of up to 30%.

It all depends on how clear the charts are to me and where the price is going to end up.

With that being said I dont use SL on my trades as I monitor it on a 30 minute basis and I dont hold for long term.

One trade as per one step at a time.

I can afford to do higher risk because my way of trading does not involve guestimating and hoping for the best with a SL for safety.

16

I think this really gets into the psychological game of trading. If you start with $1000, and start taking huge risks like 10% per trade, its easier to do that than when you get to like $10,000. As I like to term it, it all comes down to ‘replacement income’ - how much time are you going to spend doing some other gig (what I call the ICF - instant cash flow) to make back that capital?

If I sit there and blow through $1000 in just 4 hours, it might take me 60-80 hours of busting my chops at some job to make it all back, while cutting down my spending (realizing that if you’re day trading, you probably don’t have a nice white collar gig that will make you $50-100K annually, so you end up in the odd jobs or part time self employed category). If I blow through $100,000 in two months, it would take considerably longer to make it all back. Some people get money through an inheritance and that is how they get such large five and six figure stake sizes. Things like that, in my view, are what influence us psychologically.

17

if u know what u doing then 1000USD is more than enough…it either grows or it doesnt…

Why do u think we are interested in a trading method that has leverages up to 1:400??

Minimal investment, maximum bang for your bucks…

If you havent got a clue what u doing, then the size of ur account or the % percentage does not matter …you still going to loose it all.

18

I guess in a sense, you could treat $1000 as if your stake was much larger but you simply didn’t deposit the entire amount into the trading account. For example, you can either have $10,000 and risk 1%, or have $1000 and risk 10%, its the same thing in the end. The only thing is if you encounter a lot of losses, the $1000 acts as an automatic stop loss, you have to manually refill your account. I have heard of people trading like this before and as long as you have that sort of perspective then it should work technically speaking.

In the United States, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Assuming you’re in the lowest tax bracket of 10%, and are exempt from state tax, you’d have to work about 153 hours or just under four weeks full time (8 hrs a day) to replace that, not accounting for living expenses. If on the other hand we considered you lived paycheck to paycheck, assuming you could afford a savings rate of 10%, it’d take you about 10 times that amount, or 38 weeks. So figure from there…

19

While this is risky, I might point out that at least in your one example, this wasn’t a bad thing! 2000 initial capital lost, compared to perhaps 10 weeks times 500, or 5000 made. Still a nice lucky break there!

This brings something up. How do people who create bots compensate for changing market conditions? Is it possible for an EA to pull in numeric data from a specified external website? If so, bots may be very worth taking a look at.

20

Good luck if u think indicators and bots are way to go