Wow, so much for the 95% myth!
My account is with Oanda and Iām sticking with them, 51% profitable!
PS Oanda would be doing even better if I didnāt have my account with them LOL!
Sweet Pip,
Iām not 100% sure about this but Iām under the impression that Oanda has a LOT of BIG institutional accounts. You donāt hear much from them but they might be one of the biggest USA players in the game.
I think the profitable traders just have more accounts. 
I use Oanda. Sorry, I didnāt mean to mess up the stats like that.
I believe it has to do with the definition of the ānon-discretionary accountā instead of Oandaās traders being actually more profitable.
You can be sure if there is any āwiggleā room in the definition, the brokers will take advantage of it to make themselves look better.
Thatās my 2 cents
You all may have read the comments below those figures but I just wanted to point this one out regarding Oandaā¦
[I]āThey pay people interest on the money in the account which means that is you deposit $100K and you donāt touch the money youāll end up with more money in your account because they pay you interest which is going to make you profitable. ā This means that all the dormant accounts can be shown as profitable.ā[/I]
Again Iām not 100% sure about this but a lot of Oandaās accounts could very well be corporations, importers & exporters taking FX positions attempting to off set future payments and purchases.
For example, letās say I just signed a contract to pay a UK manufacture $100,000 for widgets and payment is due in 30 days. The UK manufacture might buy or sell G/U so 30 days from now they are still receiving payment for the āsame valueā.
The goal for a lot of Oandaās accounts might be to ājust break evenā and hedge their oversea transactions.
A friend of mine works for a worldwide jet engine parts supplier and they hedge their FX oversea orders and accounts overnight and on weekends.
[QUOTE=d-pip;224983]Wow, so much for the 95% myth!
dont know about that, the quarter average is roughly 75% i still would think in the long run the failure rate would still be close to 95%.
Not sure on there calculations.
If you account was showing profit at the end of the quarter, doesnt mean to me they were profitable
HHAAA!! need I say more!
āIn yo faceā ā¦ whoever was giving those stats from someone they knew who was doing this for 30 years!
I believe the 95% failure rate includes those who try it out and give up afterwards though that would be extremely hard to quantifyā¦ any rate is 75% really any better than 95%ā¦
Of the 5% that keep trading, I actually think most are profitable or at least break evenā¦
Side note: institutional accounts are not included in the non-discretionary category.
Just my 2 cents
75% means that 5x the amount of people compared to what some were claiming ā¦
Almost feel like asking if those statistics {95%/5%} came from glen beck himself.
Knowing some people here, they would go with that.
Another interesting stat is profitability compared to account size. FXCM publishes monthly stats
You can go look for it if you want but the just of it is
$1.00-$999.00 : 20%
$1,000.00 - $4,999.00 : 33%
$5,000.00 - $9,999.00 : 37%
$10,000 + : 44%
Anyway, this is published monthlyā¦ I seriously think this whole thing is a bit screwyā¦
Cheers
I think that any statistic is useless because nobody thinks [I]they[/I] are in the losing category. You could have irrefutable proof that 99% of traders lost all their money and youād still have newbies saying āwell all I have to do is be in that 1%ā.
Itās kind of funny really because the people that understood statistical probability would logically say āitās not worth it to risk my money in this ventureā while at the same time those are the very people that would be IN the smaller winning category. Thereās been a point in everyoneās trading career where they said " to hell with what the stats say, my gut says I know I can do this!" otherwise you wouldnāt be here in the first placeā¦
Cdawg,
Maybe I donāt understand how they are using the term ānon-discretionaryā, why wouldnāt institutional accounts be included on the list. I would think any account that was not managed and controlled by the brokers would be ānon-discretionaryā. Maybe Iām missing something?
thanks!
Since the stats are overwhelmingly different, I wonder if the fact that Oanda is a market maker , instead of a NDD broker is the difference.
Since they take the opposite side of every trade, they are guaranteed 50/50 action by logicā¦
Isnt this forum supposed to be for adults ? :rolleyes:
There are several things to consider while looking at those stats.
- They only cover some US brokers. Forex is worldwide
- Some only count 2 quarters this year, the rest also count the last quarter of last year so at best, only a 9 month period.
- They only appear to incude current forex accounts. Obviously all those who blew their accounts would not be included.
- They dont give the criteria as to what constitutes a profitable account, does it mean accounts that are currently higher than the original initial deposit, or does it mean accounts that are higher than the total deposts made to the account ?
Or it could mean accounts that have more money in them than they had at the beginning of the stats period, those 3 quarters.
This could mean a $50,000 account that lost $45,000 a year ago then recouped a little of that over the last 3 quarters could be seen as profitable.
This could also mean accounts that have been blown previously then have more money deposited to continue trading may not count as loss accounts either.
There are too many unknown and incomplete factors in those stats to base a sensible argument on them.
hey MJ where are you dude? Give us an update, Hows the trading going these days?
Normally wouldnt give this entertainment but it is before the start of forex , at least for my broker. But I am doing very well , thank you very much.
Starting trading metals and futures more. Sticking to longer term trends with currencies. Intraday is to stressful. Waiting for aud to break around 1.02xx his or .9800 before I hope on trend.
In euro, Judy waiting for it to make up itās mind, fundy speaking it should drop but the dollar index did break strong support Friday, rebound maybe? As it was abnormal causes and altos ran crazy with the earthquake.
Pound, that is starting to break down nicely, few others but you get my stance.
Short silver from highs and new highs just equal new short lots for me, after confirmation of daily high being madeā¦
Thanks for asking though, doing very well, this is actually sustaining full time for me with a nice check once month!
Hopefully you are doing just as well. Take it easy
cool! Thatās one for all the nay sayers. When a new poster drops out of sight itās not always because they tanked their account, it could be because they are doing very well.