Is this all worth it

Hi I’ve been learning to trade for a while I have a small account say £200 and I just want to know is this all worth it can I compound my account well? Has anyone managed to grow a small account and then quit their job and do this full time? I can only trade 5 times a fortnight so I just wanna know is it all worth it. Really just want some inspirational story’s but no bullshit lol

Starting off small I think is better as you have more time to learn! You will get there and I believe it will all be worth it

That’s enough to make substantial profit if you compound the gains for decades.

The hard facts of the matter are that some 80% of retail traders do not even make a profit let alone reach a high level of income - or even a moderate income!

That does not mean it is impossible, it just shows that it is not easy, or even very likely!

Personally, I think it depends very much on what you are looking for. If you are aiming to reach financial independence in a short period of time then it is very unlikely. But if you enjoy trading and only aim for consistency then it is not so stressful and you can be successful - but not immediately hugely rich starting with £200. It is going to take time to build up to that level! For example, some traders believe one needs some $100,000 equity to be able to achieve a reasonable monthly income without excessive risk! I wouldn’t personally say that you need that much but it does show that a reasonable income requires significant resources, which, if you are intending to build from your trading, is going to take time….

Mathematically, compounding looks very promising but until you are consistently achieving an overall profit it is only likely to end up with failure.

One possible approach is to try and also regularly add to your account monthly from your salaried income to enable you to increase your position size as you gain experience.

If you trade via an EU broker then you will be subject to ESMA leverage regulations which will also restrict your position size (which is actually a good thing).

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i also like small account, because i have seen large amount beginners make emotional and they trade again and gain , ultimately become loser.

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Exactly! Slow and steady wins the race!

Better the tortoise than the hare! :smiley:

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Haha love it!

Hi,

Trading is not a race its a marathon and to be safe with a £200 acct you should not risk more then 1-3% (0.01-0.03 lots) of your acct and have a stop loss of no bigger then 20 pips. So if you aim to get 50 pips a day on a 0.02 lot size that would be 20p x 50= £10 x 5 days= 50 x 4 weeks= £200 so you can grow your account by £200 a month.

To answer your question in regards to leaving work to do full time trading that will take time and dedication and with proper risk management, just like I said above you can in 12 months following the plan have a trading balance of around £2400. £2400 trading account can make you £375 a week and a month that is £1500 on a £1.5 lot size and you can make more with a bigger take profit.

Risk management is so important you do not want to over leverage your account and blow your £200 away so keep to 1-3% lot size limit at 20 pip stop loss.

Trading is 85% mindset and 15% technical if your emotions and mindset is messed up DON’T TRADE.

And that is in the realm of pigs might fly!

A Newbie and 50 pips a day with 100% success rate? IF he can do that, then simply go ahead and bet the farm. Can YOU make 50 pips every single day of every single week from 2 microlots with no losses?

I admire your enthusiasm and optimism, but not your realism :thinking:

But I don’t want to spoil your fun here so I’ll back off and let the dreamers dream. :+1:

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You might not know that successful traders are the ones who have a dream and stick to it and the haters will be left behind.

There are going to be hard times when the market seems like it out to get you but in reality the people who are determined are the ones who will succeed. Every trader will know there will be losses but I was giving the example as if it was a perfect world.

I my self go for 100-200 pips on a 0.02 or 0.03 lot but if I have a 20 pip stop loss the biggest amount I can lose is £3-5 but the amount i can gain far exceeds that of my loss that why i have a 1:5 or 1:10 risk to reward ratio also with a good trading stratagies and knowledge of the market structure you can lower your risk a lot more.

So making the amount said on my other comment is possible for anyone but with the right risk management strategies and precautions.

I can safely say most of the traders here if not all started from somewhere, they started small and grew to where they are today. My investment with Forexchief broker is not huge, but with the bonus they provide, my capital is enough to make a decent profit every month. In fact it is best you start small and gradually increase your investment.

Any starting amount is enough if you have the dedication for it. Compounding works with any amount and grows exponentially, will take time, it’s not a get rich quick scheme.

This, @Uzzer123, is what you should listen to. Not the dream-makers. This is the reality.

There are extremely few traders on BP who are actually making good money consistently. The rest is just the blind (mis)leading the blind. But there are many with unsubtantiated claims of profitability who will try to impress you with their trading prowess and own ego trip.

The failure rate in forex amongst retail traders is extremely high, 80% or more. And that is fact - and is also visible on this site through the fact that the most popular threads are always those concerning why traders fail!

The only way you will find your answer is to persevere yourself, dedicate yourself to it…and see what happens. Only you can trade your account unless you go for signals or a managed account (the former rarely works for long and the latter is not in your query). Even if a thousand people here say “yes you can” it still will not mean that you, personally, can. Only you can find that out.

Do not seek advice from the pip-vultures who cannot feed themselves but pretend they can. Just take a look how they circle and squabble amongst themselves around any thread here that seems to offer them a ride on someone else’s hunting trips…

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Yes mate! few years back i was also in the same boat. just like you i started with a small amount and invested a lot of time in learning. today i can say my efforts were worth it.
so keep going
keep learning
all the best!

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Good answer, though I also feel that you need to lose before you will win, experience what losing is like, work hard to never experienced it again.

And there’s plenty of those around here, ha

As soon as you ask for proof it usually shuts them up - or they just go on the defensive which is as good as saying “i’m full of hot air”.

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Sorry but I cannot agree with this at all! :thinking:

Many of us veterans have tried many times to explain that losses are not a bad thing - they are the inevitable and integral part of a business/profession that deals in probabilities.

You will never avoid losses entirely nor should you even try to avoid them!!! They are the “overheads” of our business in the same way as any other business has costs to manage in order to make profits.

And the emphasis is precisely and squarely on managing your losses, not trying to avoid them.

You cannot be a trader and make profits from your trading unless you are active in the markets - we all know that. But if you are in the markets then every trade you take has a probability of success and a probability of a loss. The sole aim of trading is to ensure your gains exceed your losses in the most optimum manner.

A loss is only a negative function if the trade was taken/retained for the wrong reasons. Reasons such as contra to method entry rules, too large exposure, moving/removing stops in the hope that it will “come right eventually”, intuitive/spontaneous trades without justification, revenge trades, doubling up to retrieve a loss, etc, etc.

But when a trade is put on according to one’s pre-set rules and parameters then those that lose are totally within expectations and anticipated accordingly.

So how can such losses be ok?

That is the realm of risk/money managment. An issue that is clearly ignored by many new traders. The overall aim is to ensure that you know your overall ratio of losses to gains as well as how much are losses compared to those gains. e.g. if you know from testing/experience that you normally win 60% of your method’s trades and that you normally lose about 30 pips compared with an average gain of 60 pips then you know that you should make a consistent profit over a period of time.

You need to risk losses in order to chance winning.

This is only a very basic overview of the concept but the underlying aim should be not to fear losses but to control them as part of your overall strategy.

Well that’s enough waffle from me for one day!

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I’ve been a frequent reader here on BP… I hardly post for the very basic reason that learning(reading) at the moment on this forum is much more important than voicing my opinions (commenting) on any intriguing posts I come across (and there are many).

Unfortunately though for newbies like you and me @Uzzer123, there are always a million answers to every newbie question asked here and it becomes the job of the enquirer to filter through the answers that are REALLY ANSWERS.

To the Op @Uzzer123, I’ll share with you a nifty tool you’ll always find useful…

Ignore respondents with lower numbers (and quality) of posts when finding answers. It’s basic statistics and it helps…

@anon46773462 and a few others with agreeable posts here have fully answered your questions… I’ve learnt a lot from him and many other veterans in here just reading their responses to post topics. So help yourself mate… Use a filter :sunglasses:

@anon46773462, @Dennis3450, @Sbrandi and @MikeWolski are some of the many that have helped me quite a lot here… if you check them all out, then you’ll understand what i mean by choosing carefully who to listen to on forums.

Mike is the craziest of them all haha😁… I learnt how to keep a trading journal from him (something that might help you greatly)…

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Thank you all for your great replies