London's Small Account Challenge

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
11

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 . . .

12

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

13

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!

14

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 . . .

15

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

What strategy are you using?

16

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
17

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!

18

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
19

11th April 2023

09:30 London

Nice!

Just hit take profit on my other account.

Ping Pong Pivot!!!

20

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
21

that would still be a brilliant result!

going great guns, here :sunglasses:

1 Like
22

That’s fare. Can you tell us what you’re trading? Spot forex?

23

@samewise

I only trade Forex and I generally stick to just four pairs:

  • EUR/USD
  • GBP/JPY
  • GBP/USD
  • AUD/USD

I have a number of different strategies that I use across these pairs but, for the small account challenge, I am sticking with my two highest-performing strategies.

As a general rule, I never enter more than one trade at a time, albeit sometimes across multiple accounts.

1 Like
24

Oh cool. Also, why just 12 trades? Any reason for that?

25

i don’t trade GBP/JPY and hardly ever did

i was interested to see recently that one of the leading prop-shops said that people taking their evaluations who trade this pair tend to do badly with it, when they make profits from it they’re traders who give those profits back to the market within their next 5 trades, overall, on average

do you find it significantly different from the other three you mentioned (all of which i trade regularly in their futures form)?

1 Like
26

As I have said above, the more trades you take, the more risk you absorb regardless of the individual results.

1 Like
27

Interesting to hear the prop-shops’ opinions on GJ, it’s probably the pair I do best with! Ultimately, a certain strategy either works with a given pair or it doesn’t.

The only significant difference I find between GJ and the other three pairs I trade is the range of movement perhaps.

1 Like
28

14th April 2023

18:30 London

So far, so good . . .

I did mess up a little bit though . . .

I closed the last two trades early at around a 1:1 RRR. I did it in order to protect the significant gains that I had made but both trades actually went on to achieve the full Take Profit.

Had I let them both run, my balance would now be almost double what it is. Such is the power of compounding returns!

In hindsight, it would have been fine to move my stop loss to breakeven on both occasions but closing the trades early ended up costing me money and, ultimately, increasing my risk of failing this challenge.

Trust me, it won’t happen again.

Lesson learned!

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2 Likes
29

Dan, what charts times are you using in your strategy, and what % of your account and leverage are you trading on each trade?

30

@Pauley1

I use both 30M and 1H charts depending on the particular strategy that I am using.

For this small account challenge I am using insane amounts of leverage and risking around 30% of my account per trade.

To be clear, I do not recommend following my approach and risking such high percentages of your account per trade. Nor do I recommend using high leverage.

1 Like