I really want to give up my rather boring day job so hoping day trading/scalping will allow me to do that.
I have traded stocks and shares previously, made quite a lot of money in late 2008 on the back of the global financial crash and then lost quite a lot of that money when the markets turned around in spring of 2009.
I dabbled with Forex scalping a few years ago but didn’t really know what I was doing so made small losses and while I did have some wins they weren’t consistent enough so stopped after a month or two.
Now I have realised there’s loads of helpful information online and I have been busy learning risk management, how emotions affect trading, win/loss ratios etc and I am in quite a good place, just need experience.
Almost half way through a challenge to get a funded account with a prop firm now.
Welcome to the forum, from someone who hasn’t been here very long either.
Good luck with the prop firm funding. I’m also potentially interested in those. Which one are you trying?
I hope this comment won’t start an argument, but I think it’s probably fair to say that scalping is the very hardest way to trade forex profitably, and that might even be quite a big part of the underlying reason for overall success-rates being so low, among people trying forex trading.
I like the idea of only having to trade an hour or two a day but maybe it’s unrealistic, time will tell. I’ve been getting around 50% win rate over 2 months of testing with average risk to reward around 3/1 so it works in testing - yes, I know in real life it is different!
Thanks, yes reviews were good and they seem good so far, see if they are still good when it comes to paying me, if that ever happens!
In the challenge, win rate is still around 50% but my RRR has dropped (about 1.5/1) because I keep doing dumb stuff as I am nervous never having traded when it actually means something! Getting better with practise though.
Welcome! Good luck. I’ve been thinking of a funded account too. Just don’t know if my draw down will get in the way. Anyway, keep us posted on how it’s going.
Welcooooome! I’m also happy that you decided to give forex another go. It’s definitely not something that can get you consistent profits after just a month or two, but we’ll be cheering for you!
First trade, met all my criteria, pressed the button and it immediately crashed like I’d pressed the button for the dynamite to demolish a skyscraper, hit my SL within a minute, -$50
Next trade lasted a few minutes but again, another $50 down the toilet.
The next one USDJPY went well, teased me a bit with an early fakeout to the upside (I was short) and it then got stuck at the 153 level, which is as you know a psychological level. I held knowing if that sucker went it was going to fly (down) and it did! Now I could have taken $200 or so on this but I was being greedy and ended up with just $108 but that meant I was overall now in profit for the day.
Final trade was taken and this also showed a nice $54 profit without too much drama.
This is all me trying to qualify for a $5k 5ers account, about a third of the way there now, 1% risk every time, win rate currently at 48%
I can’t help but thinking I am missing something obvious with this trading malarky!
I’m curious. Your position sizes/trade values sound enormous for a $5k try-out? Am I right in thinking the target is only $400? Isn’t 1% risk rather a lot?
If it doesn’t work with 1% then it aint working with 0,1% either
I think they specify no more than 1% risk with all open trades at a time when you get a live account so I will probably go back to 0.25% at some stage.
If that’s correct, then you’re doing the right thing.
IMO it may not be correct, though.
Isn’t it relatively easy to envisage a set of results where 1% position sizes lose you the account because have a foreseeable but slightly unlucky “bad run” whereas with 0.5% position sizing you’d have been able to work your way through that and recover, with only a slightly better run, and without hitting any of the loss limits?
I keep seeing people say (including right here) that many accidents with prop firm attempts arise when people actually do have an edge and a system that works, but they fail to get funded simply because their position sizes were too high.
Isn’t part of the aim to discover whether your system really works? And might 1% stakes not prevent you from learning that?
If they actually specify that 1% risk is the limit, for myself I’d certainly be using 0.25%.
Far be it from me to “give lessons,” here. I’m just “putting it out there” for your consideration. And wishing you good luck, here.
In my case (and likely most people) there’s a big difference between thinking a system works from demo trading and knowing it works when it comes to “real life”.
I think my system works but that’s academic until it actually starts paying.
Yes, but once you’ve done that, and think it’s worth a try, paying the 5%ers only $39, and only once, for their smallest trial is a very good next step! You end up with an objective-ish answer, however long it takes, for the price of a meal out?
It depends what you are measuring 1% of. If you are working on 1% risk on $5000 capital then, in my opinion, you are risking too much.
I say this because your account size from a trading perspective is actually only the max. loss allowed, not $5000 (which is just a nominal sum for the purposes of applying leverage), which in this case is about 6%? Is that about $300? I am not sure of the 5ers figures but in that region anyway.
In other words, if you hit your max stoploss then your acc is immediately closed - this is why your acc size for risk management purposes should be calculated from this figure and not the €5000,which has nothing to do with your equity size.
I would suggest a progressive risk exposure, starting small and gradually increasing as your account buffer grows. There is no time limit nowadays on achieving the target so it is ok to start small and slow. Tortoise rather than the hare.
I think 5ers is a good company to have chosen, good luck!
I’m also happy that you decided to give forex another go. It’s definitely not something that can get you consistent profits after just a month or two, but we’ll be cheering for you! 
