Well i traded stocks for around 7 months and lost due to the fact i traded pennies and you guys know how volatile and risky pennies are 
. I started with 300 and gained a profit of 800 total and lost ALOT due to reverse splits. I switched over to forex about two months ago and have been practice trading on Oanda using 1day charts with a k.i.s.s. parabolic sar/macd system. I will be using a max of 500 dollars to trade as I still go to high school :D. Seriously what are my chances of emulating the same results that i’ve been getting in the demo account? Oh and in the demo account my success ratio is ~71%. I know the major psychological differences between live and demo but due to my past experiences in trading I know how to separate emotions from money. I will be practice trading for 2 and 1/2 months; i forgot to mention before trading stocks i did no paper trading what so ever so i basically rushed in blindly. Now that I have a strict system with more experience are the odds in my favor? 
Oh and i forgot to mention I did the babypips forex school education and I still do not understand the concept of margin call 
lastly what margin leverage rate should i be using with oanda, I know they offer (20:1,30:1,50:1) or should i go with a broker that offers 400:1
400:1 is suicide.
Personally, I stick to 50:1, and only use .001% of my total NAV to calculate the current value of my pip. Like you, I stick to a simple chart of Parabolic and MACD. In under two months, I doubled my demo account.
I recently went live and can only hope to see similar results.
I say the odds are in your favor.
As far as a margin call is concerned, that will occur if you start to suffer losses that would amount to more than what you have sufficiently covered in your account. On Oanda, pay attention to where it says Margin Call. That is the threshold that your account can get to before a margin call is issued.
With proper bankroll management and a solid trading strategy, you should never experience a margin call.
ya, 400:1 is suicide.
50:1 is enough for a small account; personally, i’ve never leveraged over 20:1.
although for 500 bucks, you might want to leverage a bit more (100:1). It’s not even about how much you leverage sometimes, you just need the margin to ride out the spread (not a big deal with ecn’s) and short term fluctuations.
Oh I will be trading long term using 1day charts and riding the upward or downward trends. I have been doing this in my oanda demo account using 50:1 leverage and most of the time i gain atleast 200 pips. I hope I can do this with my live account :D. That would be great for a 15 year old :p. Lastly, I want to know, should I start my first transaction with all 500? Yes, i know this is risky, is there a better way to gain some capital in the beginning or is risking all your money in the beginning on A GOOD TRADE the best way to do it?
There are no age restrictions involved here?
Yes i know you have to be older to open an account. 
My dad will be opening one for me in his name :D. I don’t see what’s wrong with a 15 y/o registering here. Time’s have changed since back way when idk the 60s? Well they didn’t have internet back then… oh well nevermind Stay on topic, will you? 
Good for you! You sound like you have a good grasp of trading, especially considering your age.
The biggest difference between demo and real will be your emotional response when you lose or gain profit. That will impact your decision making when entering or exiting trades if you let it.
Let me say this: (1) you have done penny stocks (2) you understand market volatility (3) you done BabyPips school (4) you give the impression of a lot of common sense. I think you’ll do very well. You still have a few things to learn and experience, but all in all, I’m very happy for you. Don’t destroy any of the confidence you have earned through demo by seeking our approval.
Only you can determine your own success or failure.
Wow thanks for the awesome reply it makes me feel awesome :D! What other things do you recommend I learn? I was thinking about buying a book on japanese candlesticks even though I know how to utilize them. Wanna recommend some good books on charting?
Well, this will sound a bit backwards…but, be careful at the pace you want to learn. If your success rate is @ 71%, then trying to learn too much too fast may be detrimental to your trading. Stay with what you know, are comfortable with, and what works.
Being too eager to become “seasoned” will just frustrate you as you’ll feel inclined to incorporate your newly learned skill into your trading. Trust me…I’ve been there.
I know very little about candles. I know very little about price action. I’m no expert by any means and would never attempt to teach someone my minute amount of knowledge on either subject. I trade a method that has worked for me for a while and I feel comfortable with it.
But all in all, I do pretty well.
If I were to recommend any book for you, it wouldn’t be a methodology book because you already have a method.
My recommendation: Come into my trading room
You can profit just as much with simplicity as you can with any complicated system.
hey mud, i’ve heard of meta trader 4. Is it good, is it free? One more thing, currently in my demo account I only trade 3 currencies aud/usd, eur/usd, nzd/usd as these 3 give me the most $ per pip. Are there any other good ones i should trade that offer a high $ per pip?
Margin levels are only as dangerous as you allow them to be.
If you trade 10,000 units (1 mini lot) on a $500 account utilizing 50:1, you are more at risk than trading 2000 units on a $500 account utlizing 400:1.
It’s all a matter of common sense.
If you’re using 400:1 on a $500 account, I would trade no more than 1000 units (1/10th of a mini lot) with no more than 4 positions at once. Ta da! Money management all wrapped up and simple!
All the margin level allows you to do is use less money of your own as security of positon and more of the brokers. So, with 400:1 you can open more positions with the same amount of money than when trading with a 50:1 broker. That’s the death blow as it limits your ability to withstand whipsaws depending on your stop out tolerance.
10 open positions at 1 mini lot apiece using a 50 pip stop out on a $1000 account… get what I’m saying?
Personally I don’t care what my leverage is, though I always use 50:1 on Oanda. I limit the number of trades and amount per trade I take so I never have to concern myself with the money management or leverage. This doesn’t work for everyone as most want to make as much as they can on each trade. Me, I just want to be consistent.
Yes on both. I don’t use it myself, but it is a decent charting/trading platform.
You can get it from the developers website: StrategyBuilderFx.com
this may sound rude but on average what are YOUR earnings per week/month?
Those are excellent pairs to trade as they offer more profit per pip and don’t cost as much to carry on margin. Good observation.
Cost to carry on margin is also you want to keep in mind when trading smaller account balances.
Pairs such as the GBP and CAD cost more than the EUR to carry and don’t earn as much. The exotics, DKK, NOK, SAR being a few, can cost even more and you may pay some ugly spreads.
Look at the required margin off of FXsol’s profit calculator and it will give you and idea of cost to carry on margin.
hmm you wanna keep your earnings private?
I’ve never averaged my earnings, per se. I try for a minimum of 200 pips per week which can be anywhere from $186 to $2000 depending on my lot usage. If the market is in whipsaw state, I normally choke down my lots to preserve capital and will take it back up once market conditions are more favorable.
Last week being a good example. The chop on the GBP/JPY & EUR/JPY took me down about 20% on account balance which I recovered by the end of the week, but only broke slightly higher than even on Friday.
Usually I end up much higher than 200 pips, but 200 is my personal minimum. A couple of the trades from last week that lost were jsut plain my fault. So I evaluated why and moved on.
If you’re wanting to know how much you can earn?
If you [B]work[/B] to make you balance=
At $25,000 balance, you could probably earn a decent living. At $50,000 balance a comfortable living. At $100,000 +, you shouldn’t have a care in the World.
Hello,
I was wondering if you trade for a living?Or if you are just part time as of now.We are almost neighbors,I live in northwest indiana:)
Part time for now. If we lose the contract with the State next Summer, I may go full time trading as well as relocate up north; but for now my job pays too well to give up.
I’m just south of Indy by about 9 miles.