you didnt put an option for those who havent lost any
1 Like
You’re also missing the > $50,000 option!!! I’m feeling left out!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
I haven’t lost a dime in forex, I know right where it went 
It’s all still there just waiting for me to get it back :eek:
2 Likes
Damn Dale I hate to say it but you actually manage to make me feel better about my trading losses
If I were to tally what I have invested initially and loss then I would say Probably in the 20k range maybe higher. If I were to factor in the few times my account grew and then blew well at least double that.
That is what happens when you try to get rich overnight and try to seek revenge on the market. When I was finally doing well a year and a half ago I ended up cashing out most of my account to save my business. Since then It has been a struggle for me to trade. I’m not good at demo. For me its kind of like watching sports when I don’t have money on it.
I have not given up though. I am thinking of throwing 5k in and building it up nice and slowly 2% at a time instead of my usual 5 -10%
To answer the second part what could I have bought? I prefer to think what will I buy when I do this thing right and I can travel the world and work from my laptop. After all you can’t put a dollar amount on time.
@dpaterso, you’re so so funny
Perchtird,
that was a very thoughtful answer. I’m impressed. I feel the same way too, now.
However, to answer the question: Almost all that I’ve put in it… but I thank God that amount is only about $60.
Now, I’m happy because I’ve learnt a lot and am ready to take at least 1000000 times that amount from the forex market! <<WOE BETIDE (non-ECN) FOREX BROKERS WHO WELCOME ME!>>
FOR NEWBIES JUST COMING INTO THIS REALM AND FOR THOSE WHO’VE BEEN IN IT AND HAVE ALMOST BEEN RUINED (FINANCIALLY), THE ONLY WAY TO AVOID LOSING IN FOREX IS TO…
<<<mAkE sUrE yOu HaVe A “WORKING” tRaDiNg StRaTeGy BeFoRe GoInG lIvE… aNd FoLlOw StRiCt MOnEy MaNaGeMeNt RuLeS>>>
Unfortunately, I know NEWBIES’ll still go live without having a working trading strategy… even after this admonition!
Hey johnnykanoo,
Well I’m sure glad my losses make SOMEBODY feel better!!! LOL!!! I’m pleased to be of service!!! LOL!!!
Yeh: you’re probably talking of way over $100 000 in CASH (some of which was client funds) in addition to assets and my credit worthiness!!!
And you know what: I’ll tell you TODAY that it’s just SO SAD!!! I really mean that!!! As I look back TODAY: I can see that there was ABSOLUTELY NO reason for it to happen!!! Had I just LISTENED to the GOOD advice around here I can tell you that I’d be a VERY wealthy man today (and I’d have a HUGE client base as well)!!! Hell: TODAY I even trade the same system(s) as I was trading back then (mostly Wilder). The differences: back then I’d move stops (if I was trading with stops AT ALL) if a position was going against me. You know: OH it WILL ‘come back’ to me!!! Yeh right!!! Back then: I’d trade WITHOUT stops mostly. Why??? I KNEW better!!! LOL!!! Back then: RISK??? What is this thing called ‘RISK’??? And HOW can a person make money when you’re risking only 2% of your account??? WASTE OF TIME RIGHT!!! RISK 20% at a time (AND MORE if you have a ‘feeling’ about the market direction)!!! THAT’S the way to go!!! LOL!!! Yeh RIGHT!!! Oh and DO NOT forget to base your trades on every little bit of advice that you can get from Bloomberg or CNBC!!! RIGHT!!! LOL!!! I think you ‘get the picture’!!!
It’s taken me two years since then to reach the point where I’m at now i.e. good, consistent, PERCENTAGE gains. Things I’ve learned: never risk more than 2% of capital on any single trade; do not trade what you cannot afford to trade (like trying to trade the Dow with a $100 account); follow your trading system(s) not your intuition; take your losses ‘like a man’ regardless and simply ‘move on’ to the next trade; ignore the TV Analysts (you probably know more than they do as to the short term direction of the market); do not change trading system(s) just because you’ve taken a few losses in a row; concentrate on what you’re doing every minute of every day (just because you’re sitting in front of your monitors all day does not necessarily mean that you’re actually concentrating on what you’re doing); don’t worry about achieving a minimum percentage at the end of every day, week, or month (this will look after itself); don’t trade when you’re tired or hungover (this easier said than done for me though I’ll be honest); don’t listen to the negativity of others and in particular those that choose to ‘run this business into the ground’ and call it 'gambling; NEVER think that you’ve ‘cracked it’ or let your guard down or allow yourself to think that you’re the next ‘Jesse Livemore’; don’t ‘fall in love’ with this business (it’s like a beautiful woman that WILL ‘bite’ you when you’re not looking AND THAT’S NOT A GOOD THING so ‘get your mind out of the gutter’) (although I have to say that I now have a far deeper, more mature, and enduring ‘love’ for this business); and (Dale) never trade forex pairs!!! LOL!!! Just REAL simple rules!!! REAL simple and yet: two years ago I just could not follow these very same rules!!! LOL!!! It’s NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!!!
And yes Pipperazzi: a rather ‘poignant’ post (in light of mine above)!!! LOL!!!
Anyway: I’m SURE that’s WAY more than Ananais wanted to know!!! LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
What if I lost $50 when my account balance was $50? What if I lost $50 when my account balance was $500? What if I lost $50 when my account balance was $5000?
Fix your poll, in other words.
you have a point, but the question is more geared to “how much have you spent on your forex education” lol.
I see what u mean though, I lost 50$ on a 10,000$ account, but Im sure she means how much have you lost trying to learn forex, or soemthing near that
Would it really matter even if you had lost $50 on a $50,000 account?
Ratio wasn’t part of the equation.
According to what you are saying, the poll would have read: “what percent of your account have you lost trading?”
The dollar amount works fine for the purpose given.
Maybe with my robot legs I could dunk a basketball on a regulation hoop again:p
Alright guys!
I added that last option for those who lost more than $50,000! 
Sorry about that!
Is there a prize??? LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
I’ve said this several times before on this forum, start SMALL.
If you have a good trading strategy that is profitable, you do not need to start with a huge initial account balance to get rich.
I believe whoever came up with the idea that you need $50,000 to start a forex account, had to be a forex broker, because the only one who benefits from you having a large initial deposit is the broker.
Let me explain further.
Imagine the dream scenario, turning 100 dollars into 1 million dollars.
If you have $100 in your account and you trade small lot sizes of 10 cents per pip which is 0.01 lots on a standard account or 0.1 lots on a mini account, you would need to make 1000 pips to double that 100 dollars.
If you tried to do that over a two month period, you would have to make 17 pips per day on average.
If, after doubling that initial account balance to $200 you then increase your lot size to trade 20 cents per pip and you continued to make 17 pips per day you would redouble your account in another two months.
If you continued to do this for two and half years, increasing the lot size proportionaly every time you redouble your account, after just over two years you would have turned 100 dollars into 1 million dollars.
If you believe 17 pips per day is unatainable, aim for 8 pips per day and allow nearly 5 years to make a million dollars.
If your strategy is averaging 35 pips per day you could do the same in just over a year.
If you cant average 8 pips per day, you probably dont have a strategy that is any good, and you may end up losing your 100 dollars.
That sounds a whole lot better than finding out your strategy is no good when you opened your account with $50,000 and lost it all, does it not ?
Hmmmnnn…
I’d better post this before I make myself look REAL bad (you NEVER know who’s looking)!!! LOL!!
The poll question is:
How much money have you lost trading [B]FOREX[/B]?
[B];)[/B]
And SDC:
You’re absolutely right of course. In my case: my initial losses were not made by losing ONE $50 000 account i.e. for the most part it was incremental. You know: one account after the other but much smaller amounts than $50K. You’d be SURPRISED how it all adds up after a while. Anyway: that’s (forex) history!!! LOL!!!
One final note though. Remember this also: if you start with TOO LITTLE then a person can get really frustrated with making ‘a dollar a day’. In other words: after a time it’s easy to start wondering ‘is this worth it’. The tendancy THEN is to start taking HUGE risks in order to ‘fast track’ things and make your daily gains (or whatever) ‘mean’ something. And believe it or not: the BETTER you’re doing (on a small account) the MORE RISK you’re (stupidly) prepared to take (I’ve posted quite a bit about this of late). There is unfortunately only ONE thing in this business that CANNOT be taught and that’s how to keep your emotions in check. THAT I’m afraid has to be ‘self learned’.
Regards,
Dale.
Yes your absolutely right too
One of the biggest lures of forex is the big money potential, it is so easy to get carried away after a good run and get lulled into increasing risk too much, it is all about discipline, easy to talk about, hard to practice lol.
I have lost money too, not of my initial deposit though, but one night I lost several months worth of profits by stupidly trading too large a lot size.
I’ve managed quite easily to double accounts on less than 8 pips a day, and with leverage at less than 5:1, and thats uncompounded :rolleyes:
I was reading a popular thread here at baby pips in which various claims are made regarding performance. Out of interest I threw together a quick spreadsheet, based on 25% of the weekly return being claimed, and trading at 25% of the risk being claimed, and using a stop twice as big as that claimed, I calculated that with a starting balance of $1000, this guy would be trading at just over 128 BILLION DOLLARS PER PIP within 52 weeks
This illustrates perfectly the scale of the insanity which is rife on forums.
I couldnt tell you his final balance as the width of cell in the spreadsheet containing the answer was wider than the width of the screen on my laptop !
1 Like
Well i didnt intend for anyone to take those figures absolutely to heart, it was just an illustration of how it is not neccessary to have a large initial deposit to make a million dollars if you have a profitable strategy.
I realise I shouldnt have said if you cant average 8 pips a day your strategy is not a good one as obviously any profit is good enough to make a large profit over time.
What I meant to say is, if the trading strategy is not working well and brings too many losses it doesnt hurt to much to learn this fact when the losses were an intial deposit of just a few hundred dollars or less.
Thanks for voting guys!
We might just use this for something in the future. Hmmmm.
If you haven’t participated in this poll yet, it would be nice if you do! (I took out the part where other people can see your names. See if that works!)
Not much yet because I’m trading a tiny account for learning purpose.
The first real loss I made was last week because Oanda advertize a 0.9 pips spread on Oanda whereas it can be 10 pips for hours ! This week I observed the same huge spread lasting hours though they pretend on their site charts log that it is 0.9 pips.
Loss alot when i started few years back ($40k), but I am getting them back !!!
Oanda open up the spreads to 10 pips during news and an hour or so before market close and an hour or so after they open.
During UK&US times though they are tight, open up a bit during Asian though.
Anyway, my forex education has cost about $1500
But well on the way back to break even!