I’m currently going through the classes here but also trading on the side with a demo account.
I figure after I finish the school I will make a new demo account and see my results, but currently while reading I am trading and seeing the results. I’m looking at what I do, and what happens because of it.
The real question is though, as a beginner with demo, what is an achievable and feasible goal of ROI per month? I may be jumping the gun by wanting to make profit right now, but do you figure it would be hard for a beginner like me to make something like 2% a month on demo, or 25% a year? It would be like 52 dollars a day with a 50k account. I figure this is 1/5 the ideal goal for alot of posters I see on here, so is that realistic?
Ideally in a time span of 2-4 years I would like to aim to make 10% ROI a month.
I am currently going to school full time with no job, so I have plenty of time to invest, but I would like to have a goal to strive to achieve each month, and I can’t really do that without experienced people like you guys to tell me how it is, and if I’m being a dreamer or it’s realistic.
Be prepared to go to day/night school for this then realistically its up to you and what you deem a living and whats comfortable for someone like me $2,000 a month is comfortable, I have money for rent, food, internet, games, and just a bit of excess for any unforeseen circumstances. Granted I’d like more but others 2k is laughable and some get by on 500 bucks a month. I do have plans once my consistency goes back to its original state and when I’ve garnered enough experience but that’s a few years off maybe.
It depends what you risk I risk down to 1% now with intent of risking more later on. 10% is fantastic for only 1% risk it also is up to you on what you target im happy with maybe 2-5% a week if plausible w/ and after drawdown.
As for a monetary number goal I will answer in this video what everyone here strives for
Hi Brien,
When you’re just starting out, trade very, very defensively. Don’t let yourself get caught up trying to squeeze every last pip out of a trade, instead take profits early while they’re there and don’t sweat it if you leave money on the table. Far too many traders try and stay in a trade right until the top of a cycle and then watch in horror as the trade goes against them.
If, at first, you can trade your plan consistently and with discipline and break even, then 2% a month is a good goal to have. But remember, when you hit that 2% you should leave the market alone for the month to protect your profits. There’s no point making your goal and then giving it all back.
For your info, here’s an extract from my trading plan about managing capital growth. You could apply the same method to your plan if you think it has merit:
• [I]My monthly goal is 6%.
• Once the goal is reached, I can only trade with surplus if I have it, e.g. if my trades close out at 7% profit, I can only risk the 1% excess, protecting the 6%.
• If, by trading the surplus, I’m able to win more trades, I must protect the 8%, 10%, 12%, 14% etc. levels, only trading the surpluses above these.
• If there’s no surplus to trade with, I must stop trading for the rest of the month.
• I must stop trading for the day if I lose 1.5%.
• I must stop trading for the week if I lose 3%.[/I]
As you can see, it doesn’t leave any room for interpretation and I stick to these rules like glue.
I did learn a hard lesson today on taking profits while they are on the table. I had a trade where I could have pulled out 70 dollars, or a little over my initial daily goal in 1 trade.
I got greedy and wanted to see it hit higher numbers, and when it dropped, I kept telling myself, okay okay I’ll sell when it hits 50, then when it hit 50, I said ok ok I’ll sell when it hits 40, etc, got to 20 and I sold.
If you’re just beginning, I’d expect to lose money. You’re taking your first baby steps and chances are good that you’ll fall over. But not to worry.
If you have a trading system, I’d measure my success with how well I stick to that system. You may be doing everything perfect and still lose money. That’s the nature of the market. So aiming for a monthly ROI may be counter-productive by encouraging you to depart from your system or enter marginal setups just to hit your target ROI.
To practice in demo account is very important for beginners to survive long time in forex trading. A beginner should trade at least 3 month in demo and than he can trade with mini account or cent account to feel some emotion. Your trading style in demo should be the reflection of your live trading. So I think we can trade with small amount in demo if we have small capital.
As a beginner, the most important metric is how many hours you sleep a day. Stay fit and sharp. ROI wise, take whatever your system is giving you. When your system is telling you to buy or sell then do it and when it is telling you to close the position then close it. For example, your trade is already up by 10%, but your system is not telling you to close. What would you do? Close it? Bear in mind, each of us have a different style, so go with your style, because you know yourself better than anyone else here.
I dont really think earning demo money matters in value, because you should be trading a demo account size based on your actual deposit (or what you think you will deposit). Its more about consistency of execution and actually using it as a sandbox to explore and learn about different techniques. I can tell you I can be profitable in demo with a lot of different stuff,but when it comes to execution in the real world, i just stick to my best stuff. Learn to filter out the chaff and take tools that may be helpful i the future. maybe down the line you can pull that out and make use of it in the live trade environment. But explore your possibilities, hone in on what you want to trade, and how you will do it. Then get consistent at it, execution wise. If you cant execute 100 perfect (follows all your rules, perfect trade management, and dont make random changes while in a position) then you have no chance with real money. 100 perfect trades DOES NOT MEAN 100 winners, it means 100 trades where you followed every rule to a T. If after that sample size it wasn’t profitable, you should probably re examine how your trading.
I find it interesting (in a humble way) for you to ask if 2% ROI in a month is achievable as a beginner. I usually see people starting out asking and wanting to double their $2K account in 1 to 3 months and some wanted to be a millionaire in a year or 2…These are people who are looking for a get rich quick scheme. Maybe they will… but usually they don’t and they will find it in a hard way.
I think 1- 2% a month is a realistic goal with a minimal risk of less than 1% per trade.
Consistency. I have tried 4 of 5 strategies on demo. I have one honed pretty well and another about to break out and this is after 4 months on demo. There are 3 others that I want to try for times when my other trades don’t give signals. I had a moment the other day when I had a weekly up trend and took a daily on the same pair thinking this would move up. It all started moving down and I kept thinking it will come back. I ended up moving my stop loss to BE and hoping it would come back which it did during London open. That was one place where if I had stuck to plan, I would have been stopped out for a 100 pip loss. Instead I broke even. I followed my gut on that one particular pair. This is what you have to achieve. You have a plan and most of the time you stick to a plan, but occasionally there are so many signals the opposite way that you go against plan and either minimize loss or break even. This is a total win in those situations. I was about to go to sleep with my plan intact and the gut said change it. I did, and it worked. Still I won’t go live until I understand why I went that way. Once I have that, I have my trading down.
Right- Demo account is one of the basic steps in Forex trading every beginners should take for a long and continuous period of time. For in the demo account, in there, newbies learn to use and read strategies and market trends in which they can apply to real trading account.
Well, a realistic goal for a full time experienced trader I read is somewhere around 10% a month, so I scaled that down a bit. The first step of failure in my opinion is expecting results that are out of reach with my currently skill level. As long as I can make a consistent profit with a consistent ROI goal, no matter how big, I feel scaling it up won’t be hard after I get the consistency down.
This is why I mainly had a flat percentage goal in line, the percentage wanted stays the same no matter how much I am willing to invest, which makes it alot easier to plan out. The money earned in demo account doesn’t really mean anything in value, it’s just the raw percentage ROI.
