In order to know when i am ready for Live-trading, i wrote down 10 Goals to achieve first.
Now i tought it would be nice to have some Feedback, so i would like to ask you guys what do you think of my goal list:
I want to be ready to trade on a Live account in 6 months (after i start trading with a demo account).
I want to make consistent profits after 6 months demo trading
I will always calculate my position sizing before i enter a trade.
I will not risk more than 3 % of my account balance per trade.
I will be able to strictly follow my trading plan after 3 months.
I will take trading with a demo account seriously!( as if iwas trading on a live account)
I will always use Stop/Loss
I will stick to my trading sytem every time i enter a trade (even if the Trade goes against me)
I will keep track of each trade in my journal .
I will work on my discipline and trading skills till i make less than 2 trading mistakes per week
Best of luck! But one thing, please donât make a fixed target is demo! Itâs a natural process! Maybe 6 months with be enough for you! But, start your live when you are a regular profitable in demo! No complain on others 9 point.
Good job Pipschmitt.
You definitely are thinking and trying to go about this the smart way. You are careful and are trying to prove yourself worthy before going live. This all reminds me of myself back some time ago. In fact, this is the very reason why I started a journal the very minute I went live. Well, things donât always pan out the way we would hope. It surely didnât for me. But everyone is different. You do have to watch out for the goal setting thing. Donât get me wrong, goals are good to have, but they need to be put into their proper perspective. Like how goals should not be more important than the process. And also about how realistic we should make them. EtcâŚAnyway Pipschmitt, I would just love to see you on the other side and show us all what you have learned all along the way. From everything you wrote, sounds like your smart. You have a lot of controls in place.
It all looks good. Iâm pulling for ya. Iâm just gonna show you a little what I have learned, through my process.
1.) I spent 3 yrs demoing. I crashed 3 accounts during that time. I played that as seriously as I could. But, now that I look back on it, probably not serious enough. I still crashed 2 live accounts after that.
2.) Define âconsistent profitsâ. Technically speaking, it means --making a similar amount of money, or % amount of a positive number. But, at what intervals? Normally traders go on a monthly time period. Days and weeks are just too short in this field. You just should be clear to yourself of what that means to you. At how many times will you check in with yourself and compare some results to each other to see if they are consistent (or around the same amount, give or take a little) ? And the word profit is meaningful also. âBreak Evenâ in this field is actually considered good. Even that takes a lot of work to get to. I remember settling this in my mind recently. If we all started out thinking that the starting point should be a crashed account, and not 0, we would that much more ahead. Itâs just the reality that we get the more and more weâre into it. I guess I was just too proud to think that I could get away with crashing accounts in demo mode only before live trading comes. I was wrong again. But look, again, weâre all different.
3.) I see you going to try to keep yourself accountable. Buddy, that is awesome. Always be true to yourself. Youâll go farther faster.
4.) Know that when you go live, itâs not the end. It really is just the beginning of the whole learning process. Youâll be experiencing all of the possible factors that could derail you. Demo is like the spring board. It has its benefits, and is a very good tool. But you have to learn to swim. At first, we need to learn how to stay above water. Then we get comfortable with treading water. (All of these steps we tend to dismiss, in the beginning). Then we move forward to swimming. Getting stronger and stronger. Then when the very big huge waves come, can we sustain them? Sure, weâll be going under water, for a time, but can we rise up to the top, and then continue swimming to the goal? Well, we all know that the experienced swimmers will make it. No surprises come to them.
Well Pipschmitt, there are some things to think about. I can tell you have been studying and learning. Good job.
This is such a difficult task. And the journey is long. No matter how many times you fall, or however long it takes, if you have a love for the game, that will get you through it all.
Not money.
Not independence.
A love for the trade.
The stages you mention took me much longer than youâre allowing for. But even so, your other aspirations look very well motivated and planned. But you have this one, number 4, the wrong way round.
You need to derive your maximum risk exposure from the statistics of your proven methodâs edge, not the other way round.
In other words, this figure is something you canât know, yet.
(But whatever happens, in practice 3% will almost certainly be far too high, and if you want to have a figure in mind even at this early stage, Iâd say it should certainly be under 1%.)
Nice and honest Feedback like yours keep me motivating. Thank you for taking your precious time and for sharing your experiences as a beginner back than. This helps me a lot to make my goals more specific, because i find it difficult to set specific and scalable for myself at the moment due to the my lack of trading experience. Therefore my goals areânt written in stone and i will certainly adopt them as my expierience grows.
iâm glad that you âsurvivedâ all your crashes and did not give up. I am certain you are a smart player today. once a player, always a player ;-). Can i ask you how you did this to not lose moivation and
discipline after those experiences?
yeah maybe âbreaking evenâ after 6-9 months demo is more realistic than defining consistent profits in numbers and monthly periods at te moment. i just need more practice to get actual data first. Like you say, staying above the water will be the biddesgt matter in the beginning.
Thank you!
Yes it is just so much information to bring into a sustainable form. But i think price charts are the pulse of our time, what can be more exciting. Even with no money in the game i already have a good time learning, following economic news, making my first demo trades⌠I have respect for the markets and i am not looking for fast and easy money.
Thx again for your expertise, i really appreciate your advice. You seem to be a smart and already very experienced trader.
Thank you too for your expertise. You guys make a great forum.
Yes maybe i should planning in more time to achieve my goals, i am not in hurry anyway. As i said before it is still difficult to define my goals with specific numbers, therefor i appreciate very much that you guys share your expriences and feedback.
yes this sounds very plausible to me, i really need to get stats ;-). till than i will try with 0.75% risk.
