London's Small Account Challenge

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
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How To Grow A Small Account Fast

When it comes to trading forums, one question that pops up all the time is how to grow a small forex account fast.

It’s not surprising this question comes up so often, most new traders are usually undercapitalised and overambitious.

If you have a proven edge then in theory, with proper risk management in place, you should be able to grow an account from any size.

In reality, most people struggle to grow small accounts because the gains seem negligible. They soon become bored and start deviating from their trading plan and proper risk management, if for nothing more than a bit of excitement. It’s just human nature.

If you are going to try growing a small account, it’s best to do it fast - by which I mean in as few trades as possible.

This is the first thing most people get wrong when they are trying to flip a small account. They fall prey to action bias and equate growth with activity. They end up taking multiple trades per day and inevitably blowing the account.

The problem is they lack any real understanding of risk management and don’t realise that with every trade they take, successful or not, they are absorbing more and more risk.

In a sense, they are simply gambling.

Can I 50x A Small Account In 12 Trades Or Less?

I am in the process of writing a book about how to grow small Forex accounts fast so I’m going to put my theories to the test with a small account challenge.

I have topped up a Blackbull Markets account with $250 and linked it to myfxbook.

Starting on Monday 3rd April 2023, I am going to try and 50x that account in twelve trades or less. It goes without saying that, though this is a high risk venture, I will be following strict risk management principles.

It is difficult to estimate the time-span involved but, with the strategy I am using for this challenge, I expect to find the necessary amount of trades over the course of four-to-six weeks perhaps.

The odds are against me achieving this challenge but I have a proven edge, a comprehensive plan and the discipline to stick to it so let’s see what happens. Let’s see if my theories hold up in practice.

I will either blow the account and lose $250 or achieve the challenge and walk away with $12,500.

I will post the link to myfxbook and the results of any trades I take in this thread.

As Nicholas Cage says in Con Air (one of my favourite movies):

I’m gonna show you God does exist! :wink:

6 Likes
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i’m sure many will (like me) be taking a look and wishing you well with it

are you allowing for one loser, somewhere among the 12-ish trades, or does it need an unbroken run of winners?

with 12 consecutive winners, i make it about a 1.4-fold multiplication of the account, each time - or something like that?

i’ve seen it tried many times - never successfully, yet - good luck!

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Hi @flamingoproxy

Thanks for the support. It’s much appreciated.

As I mentioned above, this is a high risk venture. I’m not suggesting that I will definitely achieve the challenge but I’ll give it my best shot.

I’m using Blackbull Markets for the challenge with an account leverage of 1:500. I will be risking around 30% of my account per trade. The strategy I am going to be using has a very healthy strike rate and returns a 2:1 reward to risk.

What that means is that, in theory, I could complete the challenge with just eight consecutive winning trades. However, it’s worth noting that I can sustain a couple of losses and still recover.

With regard to my chosen strategy, January and February were okay months but in March the strategy exploded. I won twelve trades in a row using it. In other words, had I started the challenge at the beginning of March using this particular strategy, I would have easily achieved the challenge. Incidentally, I would have also passed the challenge had I started in January but it would have taken me till mid-February to complete.

Anyways, let’s see . . .

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it’s definitely worth noting that! and that all makes very good sense (compared with what i was envisaging)

have a good and restful weekend, keep your strength up for the coming week(s) :slight_smile:

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3rd April 2023

01:30 London

Sunday night, markets are just starting to open on the other side of the world.

My wife is already sleeping soundly. I’m up surveying the charts I studied and marked up over the weekend. I’m looking to see where price opens up, see if it’s anywhere near my zones of interest.

A moment later the chart starts to flicker.

The markets are waking up.

After a few moments it seems that there are no concerning gaps since Friday’s close, meaning the price is tantalisingly close to where I need it to be. A short while later, it looks like price is about to meander into my killzone.

I cradle my ridiculously expensive ergonomic mouse, ready to pull the trigger as soon as price wanders haplessly into my crosshairs.

Sure enough, not long later, price is exactly where I want it and I enter the trade simultaneously on three different accounts, all with different lot sizes and levels of risk.

I don’t normally feel anxious entering a trade but I can’t help biting my lip.

One of the three accounts I’m executing the trade on is my challenge account.

I deposited $250 over the weekend and I’m going to try and flip it to $12,500 in a dozen trades or less.

This is trade one.

Ground zero.

Who’s going to get first blood, I wonder, me or the market?

I sit there watching price fluctuate, something I don’t normally do when trading a small percentage of my account but something I seemingly can’t help doing when I’m risking thirty percent of my account per trade with obnoxious amounts of leverage.

My eyes start to grow tired, it’s probably a good thing. It means I need to sleep.

Hopefully, by the time I wake up tomorrow morning the trade will have played out in my favour. If not, that’s just the way things are. As Machiavelli once argued, only half of the results that we produce in life are of our own making, the other half, good or bad, are bestowed on us by fortune.

Fortis fortuna adiuvat!

1 Like
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3rd April 2023

06:30 London

I wake up to take a leak and can’t resist checking the charts.

Price has moved nicely in my favour so far. I’m not one for tinkering with a trade once it’s set but this seems like a gift from the universe. I decide to move my stop loss to just past break even on all three accounts.

I’m happy, when it comes to the challenge account, looks like I’ll be drawing first blood after all, even if it only turns out to be a few pips perhaps.

I can go back to bed, cuddle up to my wife and sleep soundly knowing that, for now, I have taken risk off the table . . .

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3rd April 2023

09:30 London

I’m thinking about Machiavelli’s quote above . . .

Evidently, the position did turn against me and is now dangerously close to my original stop loss.

That doesn’t bother me at all, I’m already out of the trade before the market even knows I’ve had its pants down.

Thanks to taking risk off the table, I have managed to secure a small seven pips of profit instead of losing thirty percent of my account on this first trade. May not sound like much of a victory but it’s my way of letting the market know, I’ve got its number . . .

Truth be told, I was pleased to be out of the trade even though I was over ten percent up at one point. The set-up was there or I wouldn’t have taken the trade but I hate taking trades Sunday evening, Monday morning. The market is just waking up and you never know what side of the bed it got out of, despite how things may look.

Anyways, back to the charts, patiently waiting and watching to hopefully bag myself another high-probability set-up . . .

1 Like
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For those interested in following the journey, here’s the link to myfxbook:

Myfxbook - London’s Small Account Challenge

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3rd April 2023

22:15 London

Update From The Trenches . . .

There was another good set-up shortly after my last post. I couldn’t believe my luck . . .

No thought or hesitation involved, I hit the buy button straight away.

The trade was showing a small profit for an hour or two and I was starting to rub my hands together in anticipation of my first big profit.

Then price started heading south . . .

My stop loss loomed ever larger but the position somehow held.

Eventually, price bounced back to around break even and it’s still somewhere there.

I’m treading water but that’s never a good thing in the market, the longer you expose yourself to the risk of the market moving against you, the higher the probability that it will do exactly that. Nevertheless, the set-up is still valid, so I’m happy to let the trade run, even though it means holding it overnight. Hopefully, I’ll wake up tomorrow morning to a nicely swollen account.

Time to try and get some sleep . . .

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Interesting !

You seem to be running circa a 50 Pip SL and 100 Pip TP ?

That seems like quite a lot of movement you are needing for each trade !

However as I said Interesting - we shall watch with interest :sunglasses:

1 Like
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4th April 2023

06:00 London

I’m up and relieved to see that my trade is not only still live, it’s actually in profit.

The price peaked around 5 a.m.

There’s been a slight pullback since then but I am still in profit.

I could exit the trade right now and realise a tidy 7% gain - but that’s not how you grow a small account fast. That sort of return, in theory, is fantastic. However, in practise, it would take too long and take too many trades to grow the account fast. Ultimately, it would lead to an increased probability of failure. I need to grow the account in as few trades as possible if there’s going to be any chance of success.

As far as I’m concerned the set-up is still valid and the London open may well give me the momentum that I need to achieve my original take profit. Then again, it could also still go pear-shaped of course.

We shall see.

You pays your monies and take your chances . . .

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4th April 2023

13:30 London

After I pull the trigger on a trade, I’m normally a set-and-forget kind of guy but I’m trying to pay extra care and attention to all the trades that I take on this small account challenge. There is no room for error or extravagance.

In order to achieve this challenge, I need to keep the necessary amount of trades to a bare minimum. The way to achieve that is through constant vigilance. Keeping an eye on price action, key levels and unfolding economic news when you have an open trade sounds easy enough in theory but, in practice, it can be quite time consuming and emotionally exhausting.

If you are trading a more substantial account size and only risking a small percentage of your account on each trade, there should be no need to constantly watch the market in this way. However, if you are trying to grow a small account fast, it really is the only way forward.

This sort of obsessive vigilance is exactly how I was able to quickly avert disaster in the first trade and how I have just almost doubled my account size in the second trade (I had more than doubled the account size at the peak of the trade).

After an initial drawdown that almost stopped me out, the trade started heading in the right direction and just kept going, far exceeding my target of sixty percent growth. In order to squeeze every last cent out of the trade, I then removed the original take profit and started manually adjusting the stop loss to trail price with the opening of each new 30m candle. I prefer doing this to using an automated trailing stop so that I am ultra aware of what is actually going on.

Anyways, feel free to check out the first couple of trades in this challenge over at myfxbook

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5th April 2023

17:30 London

Another set-up emerged this morning and I was quickly on it.

Price initially turned against me but it didn’t mess with my zen.

I’ve been using this strategy for long enough to maintain a certain amount of confidence in it even when it looks like it’s about to go pear-shaped.

Sure enough, price soon started behaving and heading in the direction I wanted it to and, at one point, offering me an unrealised gain of over thirty percent.

Then things started getting a little bit jittery and I decided to move my stop to break even.

In my experience, when you sense the market getting a bit choppy, it’s always smart to try and take risk off the table if possible. I feel a lot easier wondering how much I’m going to win rather than questioning whether I’m going to win.

My instincts were right. Price soon started retreating.

I edged my stop loss down to protect some of the unrealised profit. That’s generally not such a smart move because sometimes a trade needs plenty of room to breathe and in trying to protect a small profit you lose a potentially big profit.

Long story short, as you can see from myfxbook I gained just over 17% on the trade when I eventually decided to close it.

That’s not bad, of course, but it probably adds to the tally of trades I’m going to have to take in order to achieve this challenge - so it’s not particularly good either.

Price is still languishing in what was my profit zone and it may still head down to my original take profit. Either way, I’m now out of the trade and resting up till tomorrow.

I have now more than doubled my small account in only three trades.

My confidence is growing!

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6th April 2023

09:30 London

No clear set-ups emerging so far this morning.

Not surprising with tomorrow being Good Friday perhaps.

It’s starting to look like that’s going to be about it till Tuesday.

Still, you never know . . .

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Interesting. A good start, I will follow you on myfxbook.

What strategy are you using?

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Hi @chesterjohn

Thanks for following my small account challenge.

I agree, it’s a good start but there is still a long way to go of course. Remember, I’m trying to do this in a dozen trades or less.

I’m not going to reveal my exact strategy. It took me years to develop and refine and, as I say, I am in the process of writing a book about how to grow small accounts fast.

I don’t even think I’m going to reveal the exact strategy in my book either.

Besides which, the particular strategy employed to grow a small account fast is not as important as using the correct and appropriate risk management principles to give yourself the best possible chance of succeeding.

Feel free to check out London’s Ping Pong Pivot Strategy which is another profitable strategy I developed.

Let me know what you think!

1 Like
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10th April 2023

22:30 London

With Easter finally out of the way, I have spent my evening reviewing the four pairs that I habitually trade.

Judging from the charts and the calendar, I’m anticipating a slow week ahead.

I am eager to get on with the challenge but there is no point trying to rush things.

It is important to remember that the objective is to grow the account in a dozen trades or less, not a dozen days or less!

That said, it would be nice to find at least one trade this week!

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11th April 2023

08:30 London

I wasn’t expecting to trade this morning, or even for the next day or two perhaps, but the London open brought with it unexpected manna.

As I have explained, my objective is to complete this challenge in as few trades as possible. It’s not a competitive thing, it’s a risk management thing. The more trades I take, the more risk I absorb.

That said, this morning’s little offering was just too good to pass up.

The signal came via my Ping Pong Pivot strategy.

I didn’t stay in for the full 1:1.5 risk to reward simply because I wanted to be in and out so that I could minimise the chance of the trade turning against me. I’m still in the trade on one of my other accounts and still heading in the right direction.

It’s another hundred bucks or so towards the cause so it’s all good!

1 Like
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11th April 2023

09:30 London

Nice!

Just hit take profit on my other account.

Ping Pong Pivot!!!

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13th April 2023

11:30 London

I took my fifth trade this morning.

Another winner and I’ve now more than tripled the account.

I had to settle for a lower risk-to-reward ratio than I wanted but at least it’s another winning trade I suppose.

The problem is, even though the results look great this far, it’s starting to look like I’m going to need to take at least fifteen or twenty trades to 50x the account. Those extra trades I am going to need to take will exponentially increase the probability of me failing the challenge.

Check out the latest results on myfxbook.

1 Like