Of course you can still succeed with starting capital of $500 or less.
But you’d need to understand that “success” coming from an account of $500 or less isn’t measured in terms of realistic monthly income. It’s measured in terms of gaining experience, knowledge, practice, skills and understanding of the markets.
Lol for sure trading “all in” in long term is not a good idea. IMO this should not be discussed at all as an option. Comment N.68 is a good and simple idea. In this thread you can also read comment N.3
Besides that 500$ should be enough for a start if you can trade microlots and not risking too much on a single trader (1-3% max)
What the thread discuss is more like scalping. This is the best trading style that can be started with a small capital of $500. This capital can be used on a standard account and trade standard lots, but the risk would be higher.
According to the post in the beginning of this thread, he used a high leverage, but he made certain the position had a high chance of success before entering it. So, scalping can be profitable and with a low capital.
I have come across great scalpers, you’ve got to see the number of position they open each day. In the end, the small profits made can accumulated to thousands of dollars. Still, you must find the right broker to use, one that allows scalping and offers very low spreads to begin with.
Agreed, a difficult thought process for the new trader to comprehend, but equally important.
On the contrary.
The ideas of trading with a $500 account, and scalping, couldn’t be more mutually exclusive.
The amount of experience and skills necessarily involved in making any profits at all through scalping mean that anyone doing it is hardly going to be using a $500 account! They’re highly experienced, successful professionals. There are no retail spot forex traders scalping successfully - it’s a complete contradiction in terms.
There are no retail spot forex traders scalping successfully - it’s a complete contradiction in terms.
Could you shed more light on what you mean by the statement in quote?
Professional scalpers are sitting on institutional trading floors, using ultra-fast, sophisticated software.
They’re trading typically many dozens (at least - sometimes hundreds) of time per day, with the aim of snatching a tick or two (or possibly occasionally more) off the instrument they’re scalping, using extremely large position sizes and with a very high win rate.
They’re using tick charts, because even (for example) one-minute candles would be far, far too slow for them.
Retail spot forex traders are trading against brokers who hold the other sides of their trades. In the case of scalping, such brokers wouldn’t have time to lay off their net liabilities in the underlying market. In other words, it wouldn’t be the market that’s being scalped at all - it would be the broker. (How long do you think they’d tolerate that for, if it’s costing them money?)
These are among the reasons that scalping, and retail spot forex trading are mutually exclusive practices.
No wonder these brokers do not allow scalping. My broker tells me I can’t close a deal in less than 60seconds, it has to be 1 minute and above. If I close a deal in 1 minute 2 seconds every time, could this be regarded as scalping?
As for scalping, I think that on ECN, if you trade a large amount of money, they do transfer it to the interbank, cause it may be profitable for them either. Though, there may be slippages and worsening of performance (transferring takes some time)
Interesting facts you’ve written!! However, not all brokers worry about scalpers.
I’m thinking of starting with $500. Not really for profit but to get a feel of how everything works. Then I plan to gradually increase the amount.
That is the best thing to do. $500 is a low capital, but it can be carefully managed get a good amount of return per month. I have managed to keep a fix 50 usd per week from a low capital like this. Just make sure you trade on a platform that does kill your profits with slippages and high commissions. Some traders don’t care about this because they have huge capital to cope with the pressure.
That would be a good idea. Don’t forget to use a Micro or nano account, else your feel of the market will only last a few days. Go for 0.01 micro lots on each trade and you will be able to get more experience using a live account. You may even end of making some money 
To the contrary, actually. A much much larger account will likely attract an increase in slippage ‘costs’ due to the size of an order and the liquidity of the market at that point in time - a problem that you would never face with a much much small account balance.
Commission is also relative, the larger the trade the larger the commission paid - in most cases directly proportionate to what you would pay with a much much smaller account balance (the only exception here is commission tiers / rebates)
This is exactly right, and is one of the reasons why you so often see threads in trading forums where people are bemoaning their luck because something that worked well on a nano-account or micro-account promptly turned into a loser when tried on a fully funded account.
The more frequently the method enters trades, and the quicker the time frame, the greater the relative effect of the problems RISKonFX mentions.
It’s quite possible to start trading successfully with a smaller sum than 550 bucks. Another question is that the earnings won’t be so big if you follow the money management rules.
Good observation! I would suggest profit compounding for such a small capital. Or one can increase capital as time goes on and still retain the use of a Micro account. When you trade micro lots, it would be less noticeable and brokers might not come after your trades. Just saying…
Do you think this guy has even noticed that he’s made three different, equally pointless, no-value replies to the same question, over a 9-month period? Or maybe he’s hoping to win something for the “treble”?!
Still, what is the best strategy for short term trading besides Scalping. Something a little bit more hands on and would not pose any problem with my broker.
Just for fun, with money you can afford to part with -
Buy EUR/USD at the open if the 50EMA is sloping upwards. Exit at the close. Set a stop at the previous day’s low. Adjust position size to 10% of your capital.
No one risk money for fun. I mean a real strategy where there is a high percentage of success.