Hey there!
After 5 months of trading in demo I have decided to switch to live with a small account (before trading with the full amount I intend to deposit) to test the waters. I am scalping and trend following.So far I have been consistently successful. Will it be easy to replicate this in the live account(provided my trading style stays the same, but the execution time will be different in live)? I am currently trading 1-8 lots most of the time.Will my lot size have any significant impact on the market? What are the risks of trading that big(aside from losing my money 
)?
Cheers,
Alanš
ok mate @AlanB83
well, some interesting points here huh ? hehe
letās go through them one by one
JUST A THOUGHT TO THINK ABOUTā¦
why is it that everyone who decides to go live starts of their response by saying
After X AMOUNT OF MONTHSā¦ Iāve decided to go LIVE
what i want to emphasize here isā¦ AMOUNT OF MONTHS does not equate to Amount of Experience
letās move forwardā¦
Now, before we go ahead this needs to be said
IN EVERY DAY LIFE and in trading
THERE IS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
TO REACH THE DEPTHS OF TRUTH and Profitability
WE MUST DRAG THE WATERS 
SOā¦ Test those waters mate
Now that i have my pantera fix for the day, letās continue with your question
yes itās good to test the waters but , thatās what demo is for.
nextā¦
now re my first statement about AMOUNT OF MONTHS
itās interesting here that you say CONSISTENTLY SUCCESSFUL and not CONSISTENTLY PROFITABLE.
so let me ask you thisā¦ have you been CONSISTENTLY PROFITABLE for the ENTIRE 5 MONTHS ?
Answer Honestly.
nextā¦
well. yeah
i mean just do what you did in demo AND DONāT CHANGE A THING
well now, going back to CONSISTENT
Trading $10 - $80 per pip is not very consistent.
how do you justify this
also we donāt even know your account balance to even tell you if what youāre doing is right, i mean you could have $10 Million in your account, but even if you did , this is still not consistent.
wellā¦ as a rule of thumb below 10 lots you should be ok
when you start doing 50 = 100 lots youāre in a different ball park
but the better point isā¦ what are you doing STARTING LIVE with 1 - 8 lots.
how much money are you planning on depositing, by the way ?
as a rule of thumb
if you want to start playing with 1 standard lot, you need to have a round $100,000 in your account
if you want 5 lots, you should have around half a million
JUST TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA
so , are you starting with $100k ?
Developing bad habits
my main question here is thisā¦
if you are starting with SOME SMALL AMOUNT, why are you trading 8 Standard Lots ?
i mean you have a trade for like 5 Lots and it made $35
which means 5lots = $50 per pip, so you didnāt even rack in 1 pip you pulled in 7 points
Mate, if price pulled against you really quickly like 30 pipsā¦ so youāre down instantly by $1500
WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY FOR GETTING OUT OF TROUBLE
i mean even a 10 pip pull the wrong way leaves you $500 out of pocket, now Youāre making an average of $15 - $20 a trade letās call it 20
you would need 25 trades in a row to recover your $500 loss
and you would need 75 in a row to cover the $1500 loss
HOW ARE YOU JUSTIFYING THIS RISK ?
2 Likes
Hi @anon81929759 First of all I would like to thank you for the very detailed response! I really appreciate your insight.
I understand the amount of months does not equate to amount of experience.It would be more correct to say that after 5 months I feel comfortable to implement the strategies that I have tested in demo, in an account with my own real money.
You are right I was not accurate.I am consistently successful in being profitable, winning about 8/10 of my trades with the losses being cut as much as possible, placing the same size of trades that I would place if this were live.
Thanks for sharing the song haha 
I am just wondering if this would be feasible on the live account if my strategy remains the same, because we also have to take into account the execution of the trade(as in demo they donāt send the trades to the liquidity provider for execution).The demo is a Pepperstone account by the way.
Based on your experience, will it be a lot different?
I agree that my trade size shouldnāt vary that much, I will change this.
I would deposit around 20,000ā¬ and use about 10,000ā¬ with 1:50 leverage and a take profit of 2 pips per trade, replicating this when I see a strong trend forming in a pair like EUR/JPY.
Earning about 100-500 per day would be enough to me.
I am able to keep calm and I donāt get out of the trade unless itās clearly going the opposite way. I take my time to evaluate whether itās worth it to place a particular trade before doing it.I donāt just trade for tradingās sake, that would be gambling.
In addition to this I am self employed, doing quite well, so I would be able to suffer a 500ā¬ loss without it being a very big deal(but this has never occurred to me in demo, so far my biggest loss is about 200ā¬ and it only happened once around my first month).
Do you think that I should aim to have more profit per trade(more than 2 pips)?
As for the 5 lot trade with the 35euro profit, it was a bit more than one pip.But there was a big commission because of the size of trade
I have uploaded a screenshot at the very end!
I could deposit more money in my account, however I am afraid of possibly not being able to withdraw at some point.Hence the leverage.
What are your suggestions?
Also,are there any other legitimate brokers that I could use aside from Pepperstone in your opinion?
Again, thank you so much for your valuable advice!
And sorry for the long read
Ok, here is what i think
first , that trade
well the math says it should have been 7 points
but now OKā¦ it appears it was 18points, so not quite 2pipsā¦ not a big difference
but consider thisā¦ you took a bit over 2.5 hours to get to our goal
iām not familiar with this currency, i donāt trade it but you either took almost 3 hours to get 2.2 pips or to get 22pips either wayā¦ way too long which means Youāre not managing risk correctly
if it was 22 pipsā¦ i say think about it
if it was 2 pips, i say thatās ridiculous
nowā¦[quote=āAlanB83, post:3, topic:140427ā]
First of all I would like to thank you for the very detailed response! I really appreciate your insight.
[/quote]
Youāre welcome
i iwas actually directing this at everyone , not just you, because i notice that almost everyone uses this same same line before going live
butā¦ itās good that you know that.
Nowā¦ Respectfully
what you FEEL is irrelevant
What you TEST AND PROVE is Valid
this is another thing people say before going live, I FEEL LIKE IāM READY and thenā¦ they crash and burn
okā¦ letās leave that for a momentā¦
the part of this sentice that says AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE is meaningless , because everyone tries to lose AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, but it never turns out that way does it.
but as for the rest of itā¦ ok, fair enough
but my question wasā¦ WERE YOU PROFITABLE FOR THE ENTIRE 5 MONTHS ?
this is very important
so that 8 out of 10 streak, did that last for a full 5 months over and over without the streak dropping AT ALLā¦ did it ?
if it did, OK, Try Live
if it didnāt ā¦ DONāT DO IT but it would be useful to know how long did it last CONTINUOUSLY BEFORE FAILING OR DROPPING
Youāre Welcome
cool huh
it isā¦ ON THE CONDITION that you were consistently profitable for THE ENTIRE 5 MONTHS
that your win to loss ratio of 8 out of 10 stayed the same the whole time
well i as going to say, yes this is a valid point TO A POINT
i also find that some people over complicate this subject of LIVE IS NOT THE SAME AS DEMO.
Technically itās correct, but then again, itās also not as big of a deal as people think it is
i mean you get people saying if i trade 0.03 lots will the broker chase my stops HEHEHE
yeahā¦ the broker cares about your 30cents
ok, and your point will be , but you are trading multiple standard lots
ok, now the first thing i would say is ā¦ IT DEPENDS ON YOUR BROKER
but you said, Pepperstone,
Lucky for you iām also with pepperstone, i can tell you below 10Lots youāre ok
to be safe stay under 5 lotsā¦ if you do, No Problem, No difference between Live and Demo, if there is , it will be minimal, dontā worry about it
dontā make this the reason to not go live, thatās all iām saying
yeahā¦ totallly
and now that win rate of yours is based on the change in lot size
so, your test for 5 months is now mostly invalid because of this habit
to do it properly , you should start over from day 1, iāll leave it to you but just understand what iām saying ok
forex is about testing on demo, and PROVING what you can do , Not Lying to yourself, if you get my meaning.
and 'm not being rude, but when you go live itās realā¦ok so if you need to start over, YOU START OVER, thatās the smart move
ok fair enough, at least you didnt say something stupid like $200 as most newbies do
and i understand why you didnāt now
itsā because you said thisā¦
i understand
i am also self employed, even before forex, and iām doing well as well, both in my business and in forex.
forex for me is a plan for retirement
iāve already got the financial freedom part done, me and the wife are now doing forex for retirment.
at least that was the initial goal , and itās still valid, but i had 2 other things pops up
- My little nephewsā¦ i need to ensure they are financially free when they start life from 18years old when they leave home
and
- a friend of mine got a mortgage and iāve established an 8 year plan to pay his home off with forex starting with $1,000
those are the goals
so i understand self employment and itās good you are starting with a Real amount, not something stupid.
ok this now puts it into a different perspective because i know now you understand risk , being in business.
okā¦
i say look for something more certain
if yourāe a fan of short term gains. then aim for 5 - 10
say No less than 3 but aim for 5 i reckon
anyone can blindfold themselves hit buy or sell at random and pull in 2 pips, thatās going to happen either way
mate, to be honest, itās your system and i donāt want to mess with 5 months of work
but i think 5 pips should be hte min, but you do what you think is best.
Now letās look at this
well, have you tested on this pairā¦ are there 500 PIPS AT LEAST available every day ??
iām not familiar with your pair but i would think this is a stretch
thatās good, very good
thatās right, tiās like a business venture, you research if itās viable first
soā¦ is 2 pips really worth it
and if you get it right , did you really get it right, i mean how can you tell after 2 pips ?
so yesā¦ dontā gambleā¦ CALCULATE instead.
thatās good to hear
as you can understand, most people canāt say that
for most people itās the end of the world after $500 soā¦ good
yes i do
i would say between 5 - 15 pipsā¦ you choose how much
hereās what i did initially, and this is a good point
i first put in $1000 and made $3k
i pulled out $2000 to test the broker
i then pulled it all out and left for a few months just to test them
i came back i put in $1000 and started over
long story short
i tested them at 5000
i tested them at 7500 and left for 2 months
then back with 1000
then took that to 10k and so on and i keep testing all the time to ensure they will pay out and THEY ALWAYS HAVE
except for 1 time with Poli Payā¦ DO NOT USE POLI PAY ok link it to your card or account, that way itāll be fine
in my opinion pepperstone is fine
you can look at IC Marketsā¦ Oanda if you like, but it takes time to test a broker to know if they are ok
so when i found i was ok with pepperstone i sort of stopped looking.
Youāre welcome
This wasnāt a long read hehe
Clearly you donāt realize who you are messing with
THATāS NOT A POST
THIS IS A POST
1 Like
Hahahah you really made me laugh at the end @anon81929759
soā¦that trade took me 2.5 hours to get because I didnāt want to close the position with a loss and although for a while it was slightly heading the other way,there was a strong bearish trend present on the bigger time frame charts.However as this is a pair that is very volatile it took a while.I waited too much to enter on this one.In addition to this after I got the 2 pips I realized I could get another 50 if only I didnāt limit my trade so much.
Even if it didnāt result in a loss, I will try to trade this pair during its more active hours, this was indeed a mistake.
I was profitable for the entire 5 months but I took several days off from trading demo so I donāt burn out.
When I trade I try to treat it as if this was my own money, so it requires a lot of my energy.
I guess the fact that I am only going after multiple wins of just 2 pips and thinking very good before I place the trade, is part of the 8 out of 10 streak.
One might argue that itās not worth it to put so much energy in 2 pips however I do it because I know how big the loss would be if I am wrong.I will indeed try to test with more, perhaps 5 pips.When I win a trade I almost always see a lost opportunity of raking in some more money, itās really quite limiting.
About people making a big deal out of demoā>live, this is indeed one of the two reasons I hesitate, the other one being the fear of unethical brokers.I am afraid that I will go live and I will have some major slippage or something.That the responsiveness of the platform will be different and as a result I will lose money because of things I didnāt anticipate before the transition.
Thatās good to know that Iām safe under 5 lots!!
About my win rate being based on change of lot size, I have not even once made a bigger trade to cover for a loss, if thatās what you mean.If itās a loss itās a loss and I tell myself to not be a crybaby and get over it.I try to limit the damage and then I go on with a new trade.I know that it would be the case with the live account as well, because I can afford to lose.
I absolutely donāt mind starting over to correct my method, it will be more profitable in the end after all.
I will try to trade on demo with smaller sized trades going after more pips to see how I do.
Congrats on achieving financial freedom!I also think itās a very nice move to help your little nephews be financially free when they leave home.
Iām 24 years old now and I wish I had someone to help me in this way, it would have made things easier.In any case, personally, I still made it although I did go through some very rough times to be independent and live comfortably. I also want to get my own house and help my loved ones live how they deserve to.
Sorry I didnāt phrase this completely, I meant 100-500ā¬ per day.
I do well with my job but there is a lot of human interaction and smiling to people that I donāt like.
I hate this.SO MUCH.
Iām sure Forex could help with that 
I will try depositing and withdrawing small amounts as well, thatās a very good idea! I am in Europe so I was thinking about using a combo of credit card/bank wire.Was that an issue with Poli Pay or the way Pepperstone handled the payment?Did you get this sorted?In my opinion you should be able to get your money anyhow.In the end itās their responsibility too to ensure that the payment methods they offer work.
Thank you so much for everything Martin! This really helped me understand what I should correct/test again!
i totally understand , and sometimes this is a better option, but i have a rule, MAYBE YOU WANT TO USE IT
When i plan to enter a trade, if i canāt close that trade 1 hour (and yes i time it 
) then i donāt place the trade.
nowā¦ does it always happen that i close exactly 60mins or lessā¦ NOā¦ but if it goes over itās by a little
and if itās getting close to 60mins, i consider closing at 1 pip profit or even taking a small loss
something to think about
thereās no point holding onto a losing trade,
like you said
exactly
well then mate, if your risk is acceptable and you are consistantā¦ go for it
Noā¦ i wouldānāt be one of those,
my point would beā¦ you could randomnly press buy or sell and score 2 pips hehe
i could score 2 pips on Silver USD 30mins before market close LMFAO
2 pipsā¦ jeez
at least make it a number of pips that when you get it YOU KNOW IT WAS CALCULATED
well nowā¦ this tells us that you should reduce your lot size, doesnāt it ?
yes definitely
but can your win rate translate
Try this, AS A TEST , try it for like a week
can you aim for 10 pips and get the same win rate
can you aim for 20 and as much as 30 and still get it
if you can GOOD
if you canāt and the figures are drastically different
DO NOT GO ON LIVE
you donāt need to shoot for like 50 pips or 80 pips or 100pips
because there is a definite difference between trying to go for 20 pips vs 100 pips
but pulling in up to 30 pips should be pretty consistant
i personally can keep my win rate of around 17 - 18 trades win before i lose 1
and i can do that if i aim for anything up to 65 pips, but 60 definitely
now i usually shoot for around 10 pips - 15 pipsā¦ usually 10 at a time
but my win rate translates to a longer goal regardless
and if i try and shoot for 100 pips or 150 pips it only drops off by a bit , but thatās understandable because more variables are added
so try that
donāt look at it like thatā¦ ok
donāt kick yourself for missing something
instead reward yourself for profiting and not losing
all brokers are unethical mateā¦ THEY TAKE YOUR MONEY and they do their best to seperate your from itā¦ thatās not ethical, thatās the world, thatās life
but Pepperstone is okā¦ donāt worry
itās not like youāre going to jump on live and in 5 mins youāll lose all your money but you were profitable on demoā¦
THAT WONāT HAPPEN with pepperstone
maybe with Easy Forexā¦ sure (now Easy Markets) hehe
maybe with E-Torro
but not pepperstone
ahhhā¦ funny you mention that
like 1 hour ago or something EURUSD and EURAUD has a big rally up (Well, not really a rally) More like Shot up really quick
VERY CONVENIENTALLY
Price was ranging , all was quite and not a mouse was stirring
then ā¦ CONNECTION ERROR (AS IF )
i run a ping testā¦ all is good with my connection. so itās the broker
but before i could finish it , LITERALLY IN THE SPACE OF 1 SECOND
BANGā¦ up it goes
the connection came back in EURAUD was up approx 45 pips hehe
Nowā¦ you gotta askā¦ donāt yaā¦ wtf
oh well, i had a very nice win on this one. so whatever
these things to happen but they are not account breakers by any means AS LONG AS YOU HAVE YOUR RISK AND LOT SIZE MANAGEDā¦
so why not greatly reduce your lot size, say to like 0.5 lots or max 1 lot until you get a feel for it
yeah ā¦ under 5 lotsā¦ do what you like , youāre still under the radar so to speak
i reckon to save time
TEST YOURSELF FOR A WEEK OR TWO
see if you can hit 10 pips and 15 pips and 20 pips and retain the same win ratio
thank you and yes itās bloody awesome
well iād be a pretty crap uncle if i didnāt ā¦ right
Noā¦ it was a fault with Poli Pay not pepperstone
if SORTED means , i told them to Pee off and iām never using them againā¦ then YEAHā¦ ALL SORTED
1 Like
Goodmorning @anon81929759 !!
Well thatās a smart rule.That way you can close the position and use the funds for new trade to make more money instead of wasting time. But it would be so hard for me to implement, because if I know the trade is going to be profitable even after 2 hours, I feel like I HAVE to wait
Itās definitely calculated, and thatās why itās so heartbreaking to see all this lost potential when the trend continues after the ātake profitā of 2 pips 
Today I tried increasing my goal, aiming for 3 to 7 pips (itās not a lot I know but hey at least I tried 
)
So far so good, no losses and a 300ā¬ profit.If I am doing well by next week I will open a live account.
45pips??well done!! I wouldnāt mind such an occurrence either haha
I can really imagine myself freaking out if the connection gets lost.I mean what if the opposite happens and I lose money instead.I want to at least know it was my fault
I know that I am a beginner and in no position to give advice, but I really suggest looking into JPY pairs, the volatility is high!
By the way I have one last questionā¦does the base currency of my account matter?I have funded my demo account in EUR and all my profits seem to be in EUR as well.Will it be the same on live no matter what I trade? for example I am considering USD/JPYā¦
Thatās it for now and I promise I will try to zip it for a while lol
I wish you a wonderful day!
i understand, but you could close it even and open it lower and it would still be profitable 2 hours later.
the difference being you let go off a losing trade just in case it went bad
you mean your account currency
Only to you really, itās up to you what you have it as
1 Like
Maintain the same risk reward ratio as like your demo.
1 Like
Oh that could turn out to be even more profitable depending on the difference!
Thank you!!
You just said about your lot size. You didnāt mention your capital amount. The best lot size is .05 for per 5000$. Now you calculate it according to your account. Unless your capital is millions of dollars that lot size is unrealistic. Lot size also depends on winning odds and risk reward ratio.
With millions of capital no one will ask this question to choose lot size. It is obvious some one is new and having small investment as he goes to live trading from demo. He then should tale even less lot than 0.05. Now people first do experiment with just $250 .Millionaire had experience of trading that is why they had courage to invest this much.
Thatās the point! Winning odds is also correlated with this issue!
Oh man after I have spent 15 min to read the whole story I couldnāt help but ask: Is the transition to Live account completed? I am more than curious, what will be the results on Live. Sadly, but I donāt believe that any demo performance can be repeated on a live account, especially with the mentioned lot size of 1 to 8 per trade. Also I donāt know why, but when I saw that ratio, the first think that came up to me was the predefined lot sizes in MT4:
Hey there!! I havenāt yet made the transition but I will next week. I will let you know the resultsš
Iām using ctrader by the way
And yes, those were some lengthy postsš
Ah yes, it actually makes sense when I looked again at the pic in your first comment it is definitely not meta trader 
keep us updated when you decide to go live and best of luck!
1 Like
Thank you!! Best of luck with your trading as wellšŖ
when we talk about moving to live account it means someone is beginner he should take small lots until he not manages his capital well. Live trading seems difficult to manage ,it is safe not to put him in any danger with high lot size. He should work smooth and slowly not try fro sudden jump.
I wonāt discourage you but I will definitely want to bring a light on the fact that how much education and expertise a trader has acquired from the demo trading will significantly depend on the tradersā ability to capture new things. Many successful pro traders while many average traders are not skilled enough after passing years in forex market. However, start with smaller lot and do use stop loss or trail stop.