Is possible living only by trading Forex?

Beginner Questions
1

Let us calculate how hard to live with trading Forex.
Normal base income 3000$/month, Then each week need income 750$ at least.
Leverage: 1:100
R:R 1:1
Risk: 1% per order
win percent: 66.6%

Order
Win
Loss
OrderNumber/NetProfit
NeedCapital


1500$
50pips
0
1/375$/week
150000$


1500$
2*50pips
-50pips
3/375$/week
150000$


750$
4*50pips
2*-50pips
6/375$/week
75000$


375$
8*50pips
4*-50pips
12/375$/week
37500$


187.5$
16*50pips
8*-50pips
24/375$/week
18750


187.5$
32*25pips
16*-25pips
48/375$/week
18750$

So, one week make 12 orders and 66.6% win, need capital 37500$,
each order risk 375$, work well then can live with 3000$/month.
If less capital(<37500), will be hard.
If trading bad, got nothing.

How it’s possible to live with trading? please prove it.

[Updated!!!]
I think out one Solution for small capical.
Do you see the up table, same week net profit 375$, same RR, win percent,Risk,
the more trade order numbers, the less capital needed.
The last one, 48 orders per week, need capital 18750$, and the same time,
more orders/week, more hard to gain more pips, so cut +50pips into +25pips each order,
and if we gain 25 pips per order, the trade cost should be considered now, low fee is better(< 3pips).

But most of the time in one week, there are not enough entry chances to reach the number 48 orders/week.
So if we change the Risk 1% to 10%, something will be changed.

Order
Win
Loss
OrderNumber/NetProfit
NeedCapital


1500$
50pips
0
1/375$/week
15000$


1500$
2*50pips
-50pips
3/375$/week
15000$


750$
4*50pips
2*-50pips
6/375$/week
7500$


750$
8*25pips
4*-25pips
12/375$/week
7500$


750$
16*12.5pips
8*-12.5pips
24/375$/week
7500$

Now, Risk up to 10%, do you see the changes?
e.g. the last one, each order 750$, 24 orders/week, income 375$, only need capital 7500$.
Notice: target 12.5 pips per order, and pay attention for the trade cost (<3 pips)

This is the my solution for small capital trader.

Appreciated your any comments, and if I am wrong, please figure out.

2

It is possible, but you do indeed need a decent starting capital and a well written trading plan. Also don’t forget that all good traders spend money in the start of their carreer on both education and mistakes. I never heard of a good trader (consistant profitable for 10+ years) that did not spend a few thousand dollars on beginner mistakes, courses etc.

It is good to set targets, but make them realistic.
In the beginning a good target would be: anything consistent profitable (even if its $10/week) without any fear or greed in your trading

3

What if you have a strategy that gives you 20 times your risk as profit?
Game changing huh?

4

Can’t understand, please introduce and prove it.

5

It is possible, but you need a large enough account and you need to have plenty of knowledge and experience and acquiring both often means either investing or losing money.

6

Unless you have terrific funds to start with, you need to gradually build up to a level where fx can become your income.
This is the same in any business, expect to lose money or earn very little in the first years but learn and grow over time.
Im pretty sure Richard Branson didnt start out with a fleet of aircraft, he began aged 16 with a student magazine then a mail order record business aged 20.
You can’t run a marathon without taking the first step

7

Only if this math worked so great in real life scenario…

8

It is possible, but there are many things a person should consider before attempting to live from forex trading alone. As you have rightly and intelligently highlighted, the biggest difference is that profitability becomes essential and at a chunky level in order to survive - and has to be done regularly and routinely. These are enormous backstage pressures. Losses have to be recovered before you even start to earn your wages.

Also, forex as a self-employed business requires a lot of non-trading activity just like any other business. You need a business plan and projections as well as business and personal expense analyses and so on. You have taxation considerations as well. Even planning your vacations and free-time takes on a new dimension.

If one is talking about long term employment from forex earnings then you must also consider your future pension needs (yes, pensions accumulate while you are young, not when you retire!). Also covering periods of sickness or other incapacity has to be considered.

If one intends earning a regular and stable income on a reasonably high level for a long period of time then you must have a reliable and stable trading strategy - most people here would agree that that is quite difficult to achieve and maintain!

Then another factor: trading is mentally demanding. How long is one prepared or able to maintain the motivation and dedication to carry out the analysis and trade implentation and what happens if one’s nerve fails or one sustains a long period of losses due to irratic or dead markets? How can one continue if one has lost the drive and passion or the psychological strength to trade successfully?

Yes, it can be done. But not lightly and maybe not even as enjoyably as one might think before considering all the add-ons involved.

9

This is pretty much it. Opening a $1000 or $10000 account is the same thing as opening a corner shop. From there, you build your commercial empire (or forex account) gradually.

10

This is why retail traders in general fail, trying to make sufficient income from relative small account deposits, resulting in irresponsible risk taking. Lets be honest, to live off trading in general your looking at no less than a $100k account should you want reasonable returns to solely live from.

11

This is not correct. 10k with a futures account is more than enough to make a living out of it.
Mostly trading SP500 and other indexes like the DAX or the DOW.
Because of leverage you actually make more money on a 10k futures account than on a 1million dollars stock account.

12

If you choose the right market and the right strategy you can achieve that.
Examples of my entries.

ScreenShot20160107at222437 - HostingPics.net - Hébergement d’images gratuit

ScreenShot20160107at222544 - HostingPics.net - Hébergement d’images gratuit

On the dax my risk is usually 5 points and profit 100 points.
Later I will reduce the risk to 10 points. That will do 10/1 reward to risk ratio.
The touch’n go strategy works on the dax really well.
But for other futures based market I prefer to use retracement based strategy.

Anyway I don’t use any other strategies apart from my own ones wich i created from scratch and based on backtesting.
But I have spent a lot of times learning the behavior of the market.
The intrinsic behavior of FX market makes it a good player for double tops and bottom and wedges. FX is very swingy while stocks are more trend based. And I hate when it’s swingy. I prefer having an entry and slide on the trend.
One will say FX market is in consolidation 70% of the time (considering wedges and channels), this is simply not true with stocks and derived indices. They are in trend 70% of the time.
While the quality of indices markets and stocks makes then ideam for retracements and trend based strategies.
It’s up to you and what do you desire, what is your style what are your expectations.

I for instance wanted to trade onle 1-2 hours per day and having a huge reward to risk. Thus I choosed my market accordingly.

Impossible word does not exist. Everytime I hear people about impossible I want to kick them in the arse.

13

I started an experiment.

After years of trading i understood one constat variable that is always true. If you dont know how to, you will not make any living, no matter if you have fundings of 300.000 or 300.

So over christmas i was looking through babypips forum, only out of onereason- i wanted to remember why i learned trading in the beginning so incredibly wrong, years and years ago, and why i lost 400.000 in one year only.

'After reading babypips a few days i rembered exactly why i started out so bad. the main reason was the trash you get teached in babypips. you may find out some averages oscilators and trading tactics that work for some people. but thats only 10% of a traders abilities he needs to be sucessfull.

Over christmas i made up an experinment which will kast a year. Can you make 1 million € out of €365.

I started it on 28th of december 2015. I will start a topic over it in a month. These are the results of the first 10 days so far:

Copy of account balance at my broker:

_______________________________Account#Ticket #__P/L_____Account Balance
12/29/15 12:40 PMGuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades__2*********59******-22,00__349,70
12/29/15 1:34 PMGuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades___2*********59******-11,00__338,70
1/1/16 12:12 AMRolloverRollover Gebühr__________2*********___59******-4,53___334,17
1/1/16 12:12 AMRolloverRolloverGebühr__________2*********___59******-4,53___329,64
1/1/16 12:12 AMRolloverRollover Gebühr__________2*********59******-4,53___325,11
1/4/16 2:14 AM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___59******329,08__654,19
1/4/16 2:14 AM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___59******326,04__980,23
1/4/16 2:14 AM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___59******323,00__1.303,23
1/4/16 7:02 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___59******463,35__1.766,58
1/4/16 10:32 PMRolloverRollover Gebühr__________2*********___59******-18,00__1.748,58
1/5/16 10:02 AMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___59******434,64__2.183,22
1/5/16 10:02 AMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********59******-225,34__1.957,88
1/5/16 5:08 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___59******-75,43__1.882,45
1/5/16 8:01 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___59******______201,04__2.083,49
1/6/16 2:15 AM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___59******-80,27__2.003,22
1/6/16 11:56 AMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___59******-97,50__1.905,72
1/6/16 12:30 PMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********59******-170,00__1.735,72
1/6/16 4:55 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___59******______521,98__2.257,70
1/6/16 4:55 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********_59******_______35,13__2.292,83
1/6/16 4:55 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********59******-225,86__2.066,97
1/7/16 12:13 AMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********_56******160,27__2.227,24
1/7/16 6:12 AM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********60******-339,38__1.887,86
1/7/16 12:00 PMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********60******-240,69__1.647,17
1/7/16 12:00 PMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********60******-150,43__1.496,74
1/7/16 12:02 PMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********60******-110,34__1.386,40
1/7/16 12:02 PMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___60******-80,25__1.306,15
1/7/16 12:29 PMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********60******-321,22__984,93
1/7/16 12:49 PMGuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********60******-160,67__824,26
1/7/16 1:39 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___60******______180,60__1.004,86
1/7/16 2:39 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___60******____1.054,92___2.059,78
1/7/16 2:39 PM GuVGewinn/Verlust des Trades_____2*********___60******______339,66__2.399,44
1/7/16 3:54 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___60******______608,72__3.008,16
1/7/16 3:54 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___60******______471,76__3.479,92
1/7/16 3:54 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___60******______355,09__3.835,01
1/7/16 7:09 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___60******____1.949,51___5.784,52
1/7/16 7:09 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********__60******_____776,87___6.561,39
1/7/16 7:29 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********60******-390,05___6.171,34
1/7/16 7:59 PM GuV Gewinn/Verlust des Trades____2*********___60******_____239,27___6.410,61

can you live from €6000+ profit in 10 days out of which 4 have been hollidays and weekends?

Edit: sorry, i have to add that i dont trade forex at all

14

There is only one constant. Losers will lose and winners will win.
If you are not commited to learn, if you are not comitted to enhance your psychology and learning everyday. You have already lost.

I see people coming here an asking for strategies or is it possible to do trading for a living.
And they got prerecorded responses that people are posting and that they themselves have been taught.

There are only several stuff to do in order to make it for a living. Learning everyday, do not use indicators (indicators are redondant and lagging. Plus they don’t show anything that is not on the charts), train your psychology and learn to respect your trading plan(and you should have a trading plan for sure), trade of your risk.

So in summary.
[B]Don’t use any strategies involving indicators.[/B] [B]Learn to read charts[/B] (funny how they don’t teach that in pipschool) and understand the market. ONLY THEN can you elaborate a trading plan. How the heck can you have a trading plan if you don’t understand the market dynamics?

Choose the right market to trade. If you trade trends don’t trade forex, trade equities or futures/CFD.
If your stategy relies on patterns and volatility trade FX or CFD indices like FTSE100. And by patterns I mean normal patterns and advanced harmonic patterns, whatever suits your way.

THEN only will come the hardest part, psychology. When I began I don’t even remember how many times i cursed myself because i got too emotionnal and didn’t respect my own strategy i have specifically built for myself.

And remember to keep things simple.
Less is more.

15

Trade big ,risk more and stay short period in market in right time

16

Dont be mad if i critisize you here but i have to add that you should make a 180 degree turn.

Trade in your comfort zone, always risk less then the potential gain (Risk/reward-Radio), stay in as long as possible (PP = patience is profit)

17

complete agree with you VladWulf. Stocks/forex/commodities = they either go up or down. Very simple. so why build a ****load of indicators oscilators bla bla news info “insider info (lol)” tips etc. no need to.

Immagine it like this: you flip a coin its 50/50 chance. Now i tell You, evertime you guess right you get 20€, everytime you guess wrong you loose 10€. - Can you loose? no you cant, u only have to keep on flipping till your thumb bleeds. <- in stocks this is called money management <- real story i swear.

even if you guess 70% wrong and 30% right, you still earn money if your money management/risk management is good and you stick to it. The greatest traders in this world (im talking stocks as i truly dont know anyone who earned money on forex except george soros and after he did he stoped with it and changed back to stocks and comodities) were wrong on most of their trade, they didnt even have a 50/50% right/wrong they had more like 40% right / 60% wrong.

As you can see from the broker account balance i provided above 16 of my trades were losses and 18 wins. but i made 6400 starting with 365. its very easy, evertime i flip the coin and guess wrong i loose 50 points, everytime i guess right i win 300 points.

18

[QUOTE=“TURBONero;741108”] Dont be mad if i critisize you here but i have to add that you should make a 180 degree turn. Trade in your comfort zone, always risk less then the potential gain (Risk/reward-Radio), stay in as long as possible (PP = patience is profit)[/QUOTE] Its ok i never get mad )) I will be happy to hear you and other traders

I didnt mean stay short time in that way i meant trade less time and not scalp
Risk reward 1.1/ 1.2
But the idea of 1 % or 2% is not always true

19

This is a very good advice on how to blow your account fast :stuck_out_tongue:
Plus trading big=risking more, this is redondant.

I really don’t recomment to scalp the markets except from small caps considering the amount of HFT down there.

20

That’s the idea.
Get emotions away and trust statistics.
And by the way I will never engage in a trade if I don’t have at least 5 to 1 reward to risk ratio.
But that’s me.

The problem of forex in my opinion is as if you were trying to compare the price difference of apples and soy beans from two different countries. It has no logic to it.
We need something like an intrinsic currency index. Because sometimes a currency is in trend but because the pair is in trend too the prices movements tend to annihilate themselves. So the logic of the market dynamics is wicked. At least for me.
Because of that you need to move to higher timeframes. But FX has such a hype due to propaganda.

You might argue that stock prices are paired with national currencies but stocks are not really touched by economics of a country. In fact it has nothing to do about it. Stocks are based on what people think and based on hype (see synergy plays).
So this makes indices and stocks and some futures more easy to play.