Hello to all here. I’m having great fun in learning all I have and what I will learn in the world of Forex, as well as meeting other traders.
To be upfront, my ultimate goal is to consistently net a 3% profit daily (or 20% weekly). Of course, I’ve a long way to go before that; however, I ask to everyone, especially those experienced, is this goal realistic? Should I shoot for this, or am I setting myself up for disappointment?
One more thing, what demo accounts would be best to practice with?
Thanks and looking forward to hearing from others!
[B]There’s nothing wrong with a super-ambitious goal — except that between where you are now, and that 3%-per-day goal of yours, there are about a hundred smaller goals which you need to meet. And many of them will require your full attention, and a lot of your time.[/B]
You are like a young actor, going off to his/her first acting lesson, telling your friends that you intend to win an Academy Award. Well, of course you want to win an Academy Award. What actor doesn’t? But, you’ve got some tough rows to hoe before you’re even close to that goal.
So, keep your dreams of riches alive — in the background. In the foreground, you need to concentrate on learning everything you can about forex and about yourself.
Start with the Babypips School. Go through it as many times as you need to, in order to master the concepts.
Get a demo account; learn the mechanics of opening and closing trades, and analyzing charts; and practice, practice, practice.
And use this forum to fill in the gaps in your forex education, and to get your individual questions answered.
When you have done these things, you will have a much better perspective on that 3%-per-day goal of yours.
By the way, 3% per day is equivalent to 16% per week (based on 5 trading days per week)[B] if you can compound every single dollar, every single day.[/B]
As for demo accounts, asking for recommendations is like asking what’s the best flavor of ice cream: ask 5 people, and you’ll get
5 different opinions. Pick one, and try it. Then try a different one. You will soon know what suits you, and what doesn’t.
Someone else asked a similar question about goals a few days ago. Read that thread and you’ll have all the answers you need… 301 Moved Permanently
As for demo accounts, any one is fine as long as it’s with a major broker and as long as it has around the same amount of cash you plan to start trading with.
A demo account with $50,000 in it when you only have $100 to trade is a bad idea!
I couldn’t agree more about the “hundred other small goals”. I think my greatest challenge will be the separation of emotion from trading. I think I’d handle the technical analysis well.
I’m spending the next few months reading all I can about Forex and each of the chart types. (you may see me ask a ton of questions in this forum).
As to a demo account, I can see myself starting with $1,000 in a micro or mini account; I’d prefer leverage no riskier than 100:1. Is there any demo accounts that’d allow such a scenario?
I’ll leave my questions there for now. Thanks for the comments so far.
You can do this with Oanda, however you will probably want to open an additional demo account with a broker that that uses MT4 for charting. There are a number of people on BP that do this.
You can open up a demo account with GFT they use dealbook.
Also IBFX allows you to do this, adjust the parameters appropriately after installing MT4 and while creating your demo account.
I personally think MT4 is quite user friendly. I’m a newbie in forex, and now i’m pretty comfortable with MT4. now the hard part is making money out of it.
As for leverage, it doesn’t bother me. I have a leverage of 200:1, which is $10/pip for 1 contract. But I normally trade 0.01 contract ($0.1/pip). So the leverage doesn’t make much a differences, as you can adjust back your contract amount.
correct me if I’m wrong but leverage doesn’t have anything to do with how many dollars a pip is worth. It only determines how much margin you need in to have in your account to trade a particular lot size. right?
Position size determines the dollar-value of a pip, regardless of how leveraged you are.
If you have $10,000 in your account, and you trade 10,000 units of currency, you are using NO leverage. For this trade, the dollar-value of 1 pip is $1.
If you have $100 in your account, and you trade 10,000 units of currency, you are leveraged to the hilt (100:1) — but, the dollar-value of 1 pip is still $1.
Also, the maximum leverage offered to you by your broker has NOTHING to do with your risk in any trade. Your risk is determined by your position size and your stop-loss.
If your broker were to offer you 1,000:1 leverage, go ahead and take it. Just don’t use more than a prudent amount of leverage on any trade. How much leverage is prudent? I would suggest 10:1, or less. That translates into one mini-lot per $1,000 of account balance, maximum.
