Greetings all. Long time lurker, first time poster here.
After several months of demo/paper trading, I opened my first live account today. It is small, £200 to be exact. The intention is to accustom myself to the psychological difference when real money is on the line, not depositing more than I can afford to lose and sticking to a strict loss management plan. My first two live trades earned me a profit of £4. I’ve read enough to know that two winning trades do NOT make a successful trader. However, I found that without even realising I was doing it, I was calculating how much that would have been had I deposited £1000, or £2000 or even £10,000. After reigning in the greedy unconscious part of my psyche, I found my wondering at what point I would decide to make a bigger deposit. So my question is for people who also started with small accounts: at what point did you feel ready to put more capital into it? Have a drawdown figure? A win/loss ratio? A profit% target? And what period of time for?
Why not use a prop fund and have more cash available?
Blufx
City traders imperium
FTMO
Lux
Audacity
Research properly, look at trading rules and leverage. That $200 could be a $50000 account with blufx with $150000 of buying power for example!
I am not yet experienced enough or consistently profitable enough to consider a prop fund.
consistency of real trade results with strategy test results
How would you define ‘consistency’? I guess it’s quite a subjective and personal thing, but I’m curious as to the point at which other people considered themselves consistent.
consistency - Live results are similar to strategy backtest
They key you already said… whatever you can afford to loose.
Obviously, if you can’t be profitable on a small account, it absurd to trade on a big one.
As you said… 2 trades is nothing… and even if you are trading In a small account, if it’s too small, you not gonna feel the real pain.
My advice:
-
First decide what profit you want to achieve, monthly or yearly or whatever. Example… ‘for me to consider trading a worthed business I need to make 5% per month… or 60% per year.’ Obviously, this is not sustainable forever, as at some point, you may move the market. But we talking very big money there. When you trade bigger, your target will be a fixed amount, like I want to make 3K pounds per month in stead of %
-
Ok so, once you have a profit target in mind, try to achieve it on a small account, and be honest about your results. Don’t fall on the newbie trap of thinking you are waisting your time, coz you could have made whatever. THE MARKET IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE, so take your time.
-
Only when you there, put REAL money on the line, something you can afford, but painful to loose at the same time.
Thank you. Ultimately, several years from now, I would like to earn enough from it to replace my day job income. I would be withdrawing every month so as not to be trading enough to move the market. I’m not looking to make millions, just enough to pay the bills. With that in mind, I suppose I need to calculate how much I will be able to put into the account in several years time, what percentage profit I would need to make on that to pay the bills, and see if I can consistently hit those targets over the next few years on a small account. Time to get the calculator out.
Greed is the worst human nature and if a person is infected by this nature, he or she should not enter the realm of Forex trading. Greed destroys a trader from the root level. A trader should flourish himself with all good qualities before starting to trade in Forex market.
Consistency is simply having a strategy that brings more profits than losses, month after month. It’s like any business, some months are going to be better than the others, but the good ones will keep the lights on through the bad ones.
You are on the right path. You’ve practiced with a demo account, but as you know trading with a live account can be more challenging because of the added psychological aspect. It might be there with a demo account, but you’re not losing much sleep over a losing trade. Now with a small, live account you can experience these ups and downs in a different way and over time condition yourself to them.
There’s no set period of time. Some catch on over a few months while it can take years for others…If ever. Once you find consistency month after month then eventually, if you want to make a living from trading you’re going to have to jump in and go for it.
I like this principle.
Actually you do not even need to be a brilliant trader to achieve financial security. As long as you are prepared to put the time in.
For example, suppose you have a strategy with only a 55 per cent win rate. You can only make 20 trades per month. You only risk 1 per cent of your account capital per trade and your r:r is only 1:1.5.
This sounds like a terrible performance but you will be able to give up work in less than 10 years.
I’m glad you made this post!
I catch myself thinking “If I had £1000 in my account instead, that would be £xx more!”. I always knew it was a bad way to think but didn’t quite realise how bad until your post. And I have to admit that it’s quite reassuring that someone else has the same greedy thoughts 
I’m trading with the goal of going fulltime one day as well but, even with my greedy thoughts, I know I’m not ready yet. I’m simply not profitable.
I’ve wanted to go fulltime for a long time and I’ve read a lot of Q&As where people ask how do you know you’re ready…and it’s normally a case of ‘when you know, you know’ but make sure you take it one step at a time.
For me, I’ll feel ready when I’m earning AT LEAST what my current 9-5 pays me. That way I’ll know my bills, family, current lifestyle, etc is covered and I’d also want a surplus so that I can afford to take breaks, absorb losses, grow the account etc.
Sounds like you are pretty good at management. 
Btw I agree with what you said. “WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW” - As simple as that!
I work in sales and over 50% of my pay is commission-based so I feel quite used to varying income each month - I can handle that part. But I would definitely want the security of knowing I can at least pay the mortgage, bills, kids stuff etc. before I go fulltime.
I’ve even started taking steps to reduce the bills - leased car is going back and I’m on the brink of completing my house move. I’m not even profitable yet but there’s never a bad time for money management Everything that is saved from the reduction in expenses is going into a separate account for when I do become profitable and confident enough to trickle in more funds.
Never welcome greed to your trading and bear in mind that some human natures always keep a person apart from success, among which greed is one. Why will you harbor greed when you know it is a barrier to your success? You should use the right approach of trading and follow risk management strategy to the fullest.
Agreed. Greed is only reinforcing you to make a bad decision
Personally, I would have started an account with $2000 with no more than a 50:1 leverage, lower ever better. Then, I would trade with the smallest possible lot size for about a year to train myself on how to trade and to get all the emotions out of me as much as possible. Then, and only if I am profitable with at least a 50% win rate, I would add about $500 every six months. Just my opinion.
I really do not believe that a brand new trader would be ready emotionally to trade such a large prop account. Most of the time, a new trader would probably not make the qualifications.
Only institutional firms have enough funds to move the market. Small retail traders, even with a $1million account cannot move the market.
It will take some time before you can start making any profits.