500:1? That is some leverage.
Not for much longer though, once the CFTC set it at 10:1 max.
You Sir; are what we call a “Stirrer” 
(Keep up the good work)
Hi,
I just read the whole thread and must say I’m very discouraged at this point! I’ve been demo trading for a while now and found a nice strategy (suited for me) about 2 months ago. On a $600 starting account I’ve managed a 45%/week grow. I was about to open a live account and start real trading, but most of you guys have really put me off! I’m risking 5%, 12 trades/week of which 7 are positive and 1:2 r/r.
Anything is possible with demo. My feeling is those 5 out of 12 trades which don’t work out are gonna burn really badly. Psychology will play a big role in trading live.
I’m hardly an authority on profitable trading at the moment, but if you’ll accept a mathematical argument, some bitter experience, and book smarts…
5% risk is pretty heavy. 10 losses in a row and half your capital is out the window. Its not that one day you’re going to get 10 losers in a row. It might go something like this:
4 losers, 2 winners, 3 losers, 1 winner, 6 losers, 3 winners, 5 losers…
That’s pretty much equal to 10 losers in a row, but over a more protracted period of time. More time will go by before you notice something isn’t right.
In all the homework I’ve done, short term trading strategies that are highly profitable tend to go through “payback cycles” where they start to mess up, and when they do they tend to do so badly. The scary thing is its tough to notice.
This game is all about risk tolerance, and confidence in your plan.
If your strategy allows for a 5% risk, and you can psychologically handle it, don’t let other people’s opinions sway your thoughts.
Open a SMALL account, something you can afford to donate, in case the strat doesn’t pan out, and go for it.
If it works, just let it compound.
Don’t let pessimism stand in your way.
Alternatively, be very pessimistic then the disappointment won’t get to you 
find a system that will make good profits when you open a position and everything goes well and bad losses when you open a position and it doesnt go well, then calculate the ratio between good and bad, and the ratio between profits and losses, if the ratios are around 50/50 you would know if you eliminated the losses you would be in good shape right ?
eliminate the losses by extreme low tolerance stop loss in other words allow price to fall only 1 pip after you opened the position then close it out and start over.
You will lose the spread plus 1 pip, if your system is any good your profits on the good trades will outweigh those losses.
I have found a system that made me over nine thousand pips in the first week of testing by eliminating the losses in this way.
Oh no, don’t get discouraged so fast, at least not by this thread. There are so much more implications in this business than just the expectations of how much you can get.
Every post in this thread, including mine, is just personal opinions. Start your trading career and have your own experience.
Like I said at the beginning of this thread, some are comfortable with 1%-2% a month, some are ok with 60% or more. Neither are wrong, It’s up to you and your experience.
First things first, take your time to get the skills necessary to be profitable, once you’re profitable, you can focus on increasing your profits if you want.
In a more personal opinion, I’d say that a few weeks of experience are not enough to give you a clear view of what your future as a forex trader could be. Take some more time of practice and minimise your risk.
To make great returns you don’t have to risk that much.
Also you can take a look at and make your own spreadsheet showing you what you could do if you get this or that amount of pips daily/weekly/monthly.
I agree to disagree regarding numbers. Everyone has different perspectives, different skills, and different experiences, so to me it’s pointless to me to say get 2% a month, maybe for some it’s ok, maybe for some it’s ridiculous.
Also I won’t tell you 100% a month. Maybe for some it’s completely doable, and they do it, and maybe for some others this is simply impossible or you’re leveraging your a"# off. See? You’ll never get everyone to agree with what you do or what you think.
Trust me, most newbies, if not all have done that (myself included). My personal thoughts about it is that no matter how agressive or conservative you are with these calculations, they’re just numbers, that either could be achieved or not.
Better you focus on building your own record and test the waters based on what you know. Study everyday, learn something new. Little by little you’ll get a better feeling of the market. That I think, should be the most important thing for you right now. The rest will come by itself.
I agree totally that there is no ‘standard’ here, there is just the reality of your own performance and its consistency. Someone who is working their A off several hours a day and is greatful for getting a 30% annual return is going to feel pretty sour when someone else says they make that much in a month doing the same amount of work, say its impossible, etc.
I agree with Tony 100%
love this thread, the number throwing, and the debate what is a great return.
just as some mentioned before, i think it all depend on the individual needs what you want to make out of forex. and not the least what equity you start out with.
in my beliefs, the smaller the capital, the larger a trader try to aim. i cant see a fund making all in trades with 1 billion capital, or doing martingale with 3000 lots. Moreover, i dont think they use/able to use such high leverages than some micro trader, 500:1, even more. No way, of course.
But nor a trader with 100k balance even have to aim for 50% a month to say he has a decent earning, even a great living. Maybe 10% would do that.
On the other hand, having 100% profit on a 20$ micro account might hardly pay the internet bills.
I think everyone have to decide where he/she stands, make viable expectations, and work toward them. If it happen to be more, great.
It is not a competition.
Exactly, hopefully others will read this post and no longer feel the need to post on this thread. This post answers the question completely. “Great return” is completely relevent to who is trading and what their goals/needs are.
I tried to say that earlier in this thread too but there were a lot of disagreements lol.
The dollar amount is relative to my circumstances, I consider $10k not too bad… I tried to start with a micro account, but because the $ at stake was so low, it actually made it worse for me so in order to take it serious, I felt I had to put in an amount that would make me focus.
I spent probably $50k+ and 4 years learning to be an engineer… so in the scheme of things 10k was a good deal.
My losses in the Forex market after being involved for one year are $25 of my own money, $40 of free money I got from my broker. The rest went to a few books and most went toward gas money to go to the library and back, and the internet connection I use to read articles online.
Of course there’s no reason to pay the market $10,000 or even $1,000. That is why I love Forex, you DON’T NEED A LOT OF MONEY TO TRADE REAL CASH! You get the real experience of making and losing money in sums that are within your psychological comfort zone. That’s exactly why I went to Forex and not the index futures.
Once I start becoming profitable, I will gradually begin to add to my stake and increase my lot size. This gradual transition is exactly what I need, because if I make 20 pips today, I make 20 cents. Then I make $2.00. Then I make $20.00, then I make $200.00, then I make $2000.00. I have time to adjust my mindset to the account size, and I know the longer I am at it, the better of a trader I will be and the greater the probability of profitability.
In everything I’ve discovered to date, the key to succeeding here is doing your homework and learning from your errors. As Don Miller, an ES trader, said wisely about successful traders “Its about doing the work that other traders are not willing to do”
There are no highly abstract concepts to absorb, the basic knowledge is fairly easy to grasp. There are no ‘secrets’, no special buried golden nuggets. If 16 year old Michelle Williams was taught by her daddy how to make a 1000% return in one year, that sort of proves this point.
To me, there are only two reasons I would stop learning to trade:
a) I was offered a lucrative business opportunity that I could perform well in and would make me more money at a faster rate than trading. That probably means I would have to like it as much as trading, though if the money were very good as long as I felt I could perform I’d do it.
b) I had an emergency and I had to stop studying trading because I would have no more time. Unfortunately there are only so many hours of the day.
The only reason, in my mind, that I’d fail in trading is because I would not be applying the proper effort, and/or would be stubbornly and repeatedly applying the wrong attitude, refusing to learn from my mistakes.
I think the reason many people wash out from trading is because they think its going to be easier than it is. The ones that stay with it are those who feel that trading is worth the effort.
I’ve been into trading for a year, and there are three exciting moments for me. One has already passed, and that is when I made my first micro trades in FX. The second will be when I achieve consistent profitability, and the third will be when I attain financial freedom.
The only way to be free of finances is to have none at all. 
I am an absolut newbie on Forex but I am doing a masters degree in business and I want to make of this my final project. So would you guys say that proposing a return of 10% a month would be too ambitious? or would it be a challenging but realistic goal?
Ten percent a month is not out of line at all.
Good luck with the project!