Probobly not seeing as I posted in the first two pages. Power of deduction and reasoning might lead one to think I was referring to the post just before mine…good job bud lol
my goal is 20% per month. I think this perfectly achievable if i can become profitable consistently. if i can become profitable consistently then all i will need to do is up the percentage on my trades. i do not believe in risking 1% or 2% forever like most traders do. all that will happen is you will get poorer slower or richer slower risking that amount. if you’ve got your strategy nailed and you are consistently profitable why not start risking like 5% or more. if your strategy is solid and works you will get richer faster, if you’re strategy is not legit then you will get poorer faster. imo risking 1% or 2% is for newbies [to protect them blitzing their account] and for people who have not got a profitable strategy yet.
my strategy is still not profitable hence why im not risking 5% or more, but when it is i will start doing it.
i made 2 trades last week. on one trade i got stopped out by the spread. you don’t know how frustrating that is to have to price not even touch your stop loss but you are taken out by the spread, AND THEN, price does a U-turn and reaches your profit target. [anyways, i will learn for it and not make that mistake again]
my other trade was a break even. trade went positive, then i put a protective stop then price came back and took me out and its good i put the stop because it would have been a negative trade otherwise.
im still hoping that eventually i will be profitable. i constantly review things and if a trade goes wrong i always analyze it and try and find a reason why so i can avoid such a mistake again.
I think jadd806 is just being overly negative these days.
to be fair he’s right in that very few % of traders will actually make it, and he’s right forex definitely isn’t easy …but with such a defeatist attitude i can’t really see him having any sort of chance of progressing to that 5% who are making money or that 1% who are making big money. he’s simply not hungry enough for it.
although having said that, it’s not just about about hunger. in any field with low barriers to entry [music for example] you will always get fierce competition and it is usually only the most naturally gifted people that make it.
for those 5% to consistently make money, 95% must loose money.
the truth is, is that for anyone to make money you have to be better, and more skilled than atleast 95 out of 100 traders. that is the level you have to reach.
I am making money. The couple other traders in this thread who are making money have pretty much agreed with what I said.
I’m not being negative. I am being realistic. Look, I started out with the same mindset. I thought I could make 20% per month no sweat. You will quickly learn that this is not a realistic goal. Those returns are not sustainable.
You can play with numbers all you want, but at the end of the day it’s all just theoretical. It’s easy to say you’ll risk 5% per trade. But when it’s an account with a sum of real money that actually matters to you, that will not work.
You’re correct in that you need to be better than 95 out of 100 traders to make money. But how many do you have to be better than to return 1% per month? 96 out of 100? How many for 3% per month? 99 out of 100?
I know what you’re going to do, because I’ve been [B]exactly[/B] where you are. You are going to ignore my advice and go out to try it anyway. Good, that’s the attitude you need. Most of the stuff you read on these forums is pure BS, so you need to test it for yourself. But in a few months, maybe a year if you’re still around you’ll be back on this forum with a new outlook and it will be very similar to mine.
Lot’s of “ifs” and “all I’ll need to do’s” in this.
Let me ask you this, instead of talking hypotheticals “when I become profitable” “when I become consistent” etc, how many trades / month are you averaging right now, and how many months have you been consistently trading? You said you made 2 trades in 1 week- would it be accurate to assume that you then are making, on average, 8 trades / month?
Also regarding your last few sentences:
The only barrier to entry is yourself.
You don’t need to be “better and more skilled than at least 95 out of 100 traders”.
You need to be “better and more skilled” than the you of yesterday.
Trading is a competition against yourself- not anyone else.
if you are consistently making money im pleased for you.
i assumed you were not because the tone of your posts kinda imply you are very frustrated with forex
but if you are consistently making money then 20% a month shouldn’t be that hard. say you are risking 1% a trade, just increase the amount. ofcource this is only going to work IF your trading is solid and you are consistently making money month after month. if you are using one of those wishy washy system which have a couple good months here and there and then the next month all your profits are gone then increasing the % risk on each trade is unlikely to work.
and as for saying i would not risk 5% a trade with real money, well you don’t really know me or my circumstances. i already risk 2% a trade with my own money [last few months was only risking 1% but ive got a bit more confident], granted it isn’t a huge amount of money [to other people] in there but i am not a rich man and i definitely feel the pain when i loose 2% even though it would likely be peanuts to others. i don’t believe on staying on demo to infinity. real emotion, real pain, real joy, real dilemma must be experienced imo and that only comes with trading real money. how you act in demo is not the same as you act in real life.
and no, i am not going to “try it anyway”, as i am not a profitable trader it would be foolish of me at this point to start risking 5% a trade. i will make that leap once i am convinced i am consistently profitable.
and yes, there is alot of BS on the forums … but that is what inevitably happens because most people arn’t consistently making money. im ALOT more careful who i take trading advice from these days. even you. but without a verified myfxbook to display i take your advice on the 20% with a large grain of salt as i’ve seen it is possible from someone more verified than you. do not take offense to this, but i have to operate like this these days. too many people giving “expert” advice on these forums or claiming to be a profitable trader when really all they’ve had is a couple months without a loss.
i learnt that lesson last year with a 70% total loss to my account. took advice from a lot people, tried many different systems etc.
this year was actually break even [well until the start of this month], so yeah …although im not profitable yet im slowly moving in the right direction, and one of the things that helped was to be careful who i take advice from.
to answer your question, i have not traded “consistently” since jan 2013. all in all in total there has probably been around 6 months non trading. this year i have regularly been trading though.
this year was break even until the start of the month. now im at a bit of a loss but the month isn’t over so i guess the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.
usually i make alot more than 8 trades a month. maybe around 15ish on average. i have been analysing the trades and have come to the conclusion that certain trades i should not take anymore, and only go for the most solid setups. hence why this week it was only two trades i took. its a real shame the damn spread hit my stop loss and took me out of a trade that would have turned profitable this week but you live and learn and make changes.
i disagree about trading not being a competition. for some people to be profitable some must be unprofitable. we’re all on this forum to learn and many of us try and contribute too, but unfortunately in forex everybody cannot be a winner. you do literally have to be better than 95% of Forex traders if you want to do this for a living.
Here’s a statistic that should make everyone take notice. Dunn and Bradstreet did a study and determined that “90% of small businesses that fail do so because of a lack of skills and knowledge on the part of the owner.” They didn’t go belly up because of the competitions’ lower prices, or a poor location, or a bad national economy – they failed because the owners didn’t have the knowledge and skills to properly run their businesses!
This speaks to 99% of the content I try to post when giving advice around here.
r.e. stop playing the hypothetical what if game, and start focusing on your education and skill-set.
Too many people come into trading solely focused on that day they can tell their boss to hit the road, and quit their job, to trade from their luxurious office within their mansion.
It’s a pipe dream for 95% of the people who trade.
The professionals know this, and since the first trade was ever made continue to exploit simple human behavior. Nothing has changed, and nothing ever will.
Regarding your stop loss being hit. I dont know your style of trading but suspect it may be swing trading. I recently attended a webinar hosted by Alession Rastani (celebrity trader) who suggested not placing a stop loss as such, but instead setting an alert if price crosses a certain level ie where you would normally place your stop. Only if price closes above this point, would you close the trade. OK so you may end up risking more as on occasions price may close significantly higher than the alert/ stop level, but he is of the opinion that that in the long run this is a more profitable way to trade.
I personally havent tried this as I am scalping the 5 minute time frame and I think this method is perhaps more suited to the higher time frames ie if you risk 2% with a normal stop of 100 pips, then a close above your usual stop is unlikely to do too much harm to your account.
If you’re properly position sized and highly accurate, you should eventually have no problem trading without a stop loss.
I don’t use one- and, may have only put one on as an “emergency” because of overnight event risk 1 or 2 times in the last 5 months.
Bro to sum up what I’ve read here, return is directly correlated to the size of the coconuts that dangle between your legs. If they’re the size of bowling balls you can venture into the world of HF day trading and returns of 2, 5, 10% a day can be generated but the risk is just as great. If you only have grapes then trade daily charts and expect 2, 5, 10% a month. Size does matter, we all like to think we have bowling balls but the reality is …
It is possible never to make a loss trading Forex ONLY IF the currency you are trading does not become extinct.
Whether we are profitable at the end of the year is determined by the number of our losses. If you can eliminate your losses then you will be profitable.
That’s what I’ve been doing wrong. Incurring losses. I like your trading plan. Never lose. I’ve been wasting my time with money management, risk:reward, reality etc etc… Please share your never lose system (unless the pair becomes extinct of course) sounds like you know exactly what you’re talking about…
Realistic means you should consider facts over myth… realistic also means you must consider your own skills compared to other trader(s). Furthermore, realistic also means you should factor in things that might limit your potential profit such as leverage.
So here’s the formula…
High skill + low balance = high possible %
Enough skill + low balance = lower than above
High skill + bigger balance = lower possible %
Enough skill + bigger balance = lower than above
High skill + even bigger balance = even lower possible %
Enough skill + even bigger balance = lower than above
I don’t dare to put the exact percentage because it’s hard to quantify the trader’s skill unless you have enough data about him.
