Ok, everyone, first and foremost this is an amazing community, I have just recently joined but have been browsing around for almost a year. I do have some beginner questions.
Is there a practice broker out there that lets you choose how much your starting account balance is. I have ran into the standard 50k starting numbers and to me they are just unrealistic. I would like one that lets you determine the initial amount but is still a good practice model.
With a starter account of say $500-$1000, is it possible to make a consistant 30-40 pips per day? I know that they say that is to small of an amount to start with but im looking into starting out in mini’s or even micro’s. I know that on mini’s 30-40 only translates into $30-$40, but that is a good amount to let grow. So in your experiences, with the right money management and the right research, can this be accomplished?
Thank you all for your time and I hope to be a bigger part of this community.
Go to ACM USA, they have DEMO account with $ 5.000 and YES you can make 30 - 40 pips each day, or more. all depends of your trading style, money management, attitude and skills.
The size of your account has nothing to do with how many pips you can make in a day.
Use a broker that lets you choose your position size. Oanda demo lets you set $1000 and they also let you use whatever position size you want. Your lot could be 1,324 if you want it to be. Or 2. Or 73. Whatever.
one thing to notice with the MT4 demo’s is that they preset your equity figures when you open a demo account — what few know is that you can click on the amount and make it what you wish by simply typing in the amount.
if youve opened a demo and wish to change the amount, simply open another demo and delete the old one !
I wouldn’t expect to be making consistent daily profits until you’ve gained quite a bit of experience. Let’s start with baby steps and make our first goal not to blow the account! Then you can work on breaking even, and finally work up to actually profiting!
I assure you that what other people are making has absolutely no relation to what you will be making. This is a very personal endeavour, where independence and commitment to improving your own skills are rewarded the most.
It can be accomplished if you believe it can and take the necessary steps to ensure you succeed. If you don’t have the belief in yourself, you will not be able to accomplish it. If you do have belief and take the appropriate actions anything is possible.
If everyone listened to what others told them was possible nothing great would ever be done.
I think that�s valid if you�re trying to climb a mountain on your knees, but when you enter a subject matter in which you�re not all that experienced, you will have to listen to what others say, to what people with more experience say.
I don�t have that much experience, but I can say that this is not so much about inspirational phrases (although I thoroughly enjoy the quotes at the bottom of this site) but about being patient and meticulous.
With most demo’s you can adjust the amount up or down. With IBFX/demo, you have to specify that it’s a micro account.
Yes, it is possible and even probable if you develop a good edge and execute it objectively. On my current edge I get 20-50 pips per trade on a winner. Depending on how if I feel like trading the whole session I’ll either quit after my first positive pips or make up to 10 trades if I feel like I’m in the flow. Don’t worry about what 30 pips translates too, with a good edge you can compound and easily go from one week 1 pip equals .10 cents, to one week 1 pip equals .50 cents. As long as you develop your self as a consistent trader you can gradually compound your account. So, while some traders think the ultimate goal should be make more and more pips within one trade, it makes more sense to learn to just be consistent and develp the ability to keep taking the same amount of pips positively.
I recommend, “dragon33’s money management.” It will give a pip value based your account size and a plan for slowly compounding your account if you have a repeatable edge. Just remember to take the pip value down when you lose and your account goes down a considerable amount.
The basics are as follows. Take your account size and divide by 400. This will give you your pip value. If you have a stop loss of -20, then a losing trade will lose 5% of your account I believe. So, adjust your number accordingly. This is an aggresive money managment systme designed to slowly compound your account.
Another thing you can do is find out what your stop loss is based on your edge. For instance if you know through historical performance that when a trade goes -30 pips it is past breathing room and not coming back, divide the amount you want to risk over thirty pips. $500 account x 1% risk = $5.
Pip value= risk ($5) / SL (30pips)… .17 cents rounded up, per pip.
I recommend IBFX. Both for demo and live. You can adjust your account size to whatever you want. Make sure to specify that it is a micro account in demo.
I’ve been live with them 3 weeks and so far they work great for my micro account. They allow you to fractionalize lots to the second decimal. So, you can trade .01 cent if you really wanted. This allows you to trade strictly on the size of your account. So, if you had $500 dollar account you would be starting with a $1.25 pip value. ( I recommend starting smaller both in account size and pip value, until you know you have a good edge) There is no minimum account size at IBFX, so that is not a problem.
The babypips school say that the number one reason for failure is undercapitolization. I think this should be changed to: Trading to big on a small account. As, you can be very successful on a micro account if you trade the appropriate size and slowly build it. (In other words if you are on a micro account the very most you should be trading is micro lots!!!) The reason undercapitalization kills so many traders is because they trade full lots on mini/micro account and so they can’t weather any drawown.