I will be starting my forex account April 2 with $500 as my first deposit. I am aiming for 20-30 pips a day and looking for small returns starting off for a few months. My goal is by August 15 to be seeing $100 on the same 20-30 pips. I am not looking to run an account up crazy high really quickly just to see a nice side income. Anyone have ideas or pointers to avoid pitfalls?
Congratz that is a nice target. The first and maybe more important rule is always place your stops. Physical stops are Good way to prevent big loses
stops are always entered just after I place my orders on my practice account, my dad lost 75 pips in 5 minutes to news so I have planned to use stops on any account
Do you have a system to trade? You shouldn’t trade real money unless you have a system that you have tested and are confident that it works.
Your target and strategy is perfect. There is no need to change anything right now just choose a perfect trading time for it.
I do have a strategy that I have backtested manually. I do have to change the goals to accommodate shorter goals. I was about 50% accurate on the hourly averaging about 40 pipsover the course of a uear, but trades were averaging about 36 hours. I feel I can shoot for smaller profits and increase my winrate during shorter trades. I have to alter the strategy and so far its coming along nicely, however for such a small sample I do not think I can make accurate judgements quite yet…
That’s why it’s a good idea to keep your eye on the news!
Sounds like you have the right idea, smart small. Good luck.
LA
Good luck. Thats good your starting small to learn the ropes. Your main goal should be to develop a nice track record and to build confidence not make money. The only way you will build a nice track record is by making great trades. And the only way you will do that is by only trading when a great trade has presented itself.
Just in hind sight. Im a little concerned with what happens when you lose. If your target is to make 30 pips a day then that will be your main focus. Some days are going to be easy, you will do it in one trade. Others you might lose 60 pips in pursuit of hitting this 30 pips a day target. Or you might keep trading even though your losing since you want to hit your 30 pips per day target and you stop trading after you lose a tonne load of pips.
You will need rules to know when to stop trading so you can continue to trade. I trade end of day charts so my style is different to yours. But i dont care if i make 1 pip in a month since i only trade when a great trade presents itself. That is my main focus. Trading only when there is a great trade, not to make 300 pips a month. If i chase 300 pips per month I wouldn’t be standing where i am today.
thanks for the reply and thankfully I have experience of playing poker in a controlled way. The analogy I am making is not an obvious one, so let me make it clear. Poker players have to have very clear money management because just like forex traders. If you mishandle a bankroll or an account it doesn’t matter if you are the very best, because variance will always come to bite you. Clear money management, being able to shoot for realistic goals, dealing with variance, and tilt (tilt is when you play stupidly because you’re too emotionally involved) are the key things I have been able to take away from my poker playing. Just to be clear the only reason I am not playing poker for a living is that most pros only make 2-5 big blinds per 100 hands for about 20,000 hand samples. That means per 3 hour session you see about 400ish hands playing 4 tables and depending on stakes you might only see $8-20 for 3 hours of really focused work. I will be doing a full write up of a strategy later on and post it up for you guys to tear apart so I can get some feedback
OK I did some expected value calculations for a 50% accurate system with a 20-10 risk it equals +5 per trade. I kinda doubt that my system so far is that accurate but the only thing I am lacking is sample volume. I am working on a write up for poker techniques in forex and will post when completed
I think you are right to get into the trade… If you have the confident, have a try to achieve your target!
thanks guys. I have to delay my deposit because I have problems with my practice account
best of luck