is 100% return each year realistic?

[Martinghoul]

No and you're not looking properly... The real accounts are not fictitious. I am having a little trouble getting my head around you... There are many journals on this very site where people prove day after day, week after week that they are earning enough pips to easily kill 100% per year and there are pages and pages of em on myfxbook making more than 30% per month.

How can you be so gullible, Liam? Are you telling me that you believe everything that people post on internet trading sites? Have you not heard enough painful stories of people who "were killing it day after day, week after week"? Maybe, arabian and others can tell you the story of one T2W "legend" called Wasp, who was one of these incredibly successful earners of pips.

 

[LiamH]

How can you be so gullible, Liam? Are you telling me that you believe everything that people post on internet trading sites? Have you not heard enough painful stories of people who "were killing it day after day, week after week"? Maybe, arabian and others can tell you the story of one T2W "legend" called Wasp, who was one of these incredibly successful earners of pips.

Yep, I was lurking around in Wasp's day.

I am not gullible and nor am I stupid. I've been interested in trading for years and for sure, at the beginning I thought it was my ticket but it's not. I do however plan to make a career of trading and I am pretty god damn certain that I can make 2000 pips per year without seeing such a drawdown that I would give up 🙂 Hell, half the risk and call it 4000 pips per year... Pretty sure I can achieve that most years too.

Do you trade? How many pips do you make yearly? That question to meanreversion too.

 

[Martinghoul]

Well, the website is quite young. Have you looked at the number of trades some of them have placed? There are some with 2-300 and that is a pretty big sample.

True, the website is young, which is why we shouldn't be using it, don't you think? I don't really care how many trades are placed. I care about the various mkt regimes under which these systems may or may not have been tested. For example, as I said, if a strategy doesn't show me how it would have performed in 2007-08, I have no use for it.

Have you looked through the journals and strategies on this site? Live calls making way more than 2k pips per year and based on pretty basic calculations without stupid leverage that is enough to make 100% per year, which means then that 100% per year is an entirely possible achievement.

I still don't see why people think this is such a bad thing to say? It is proven time and time again by people on sites just like this with LIVE calls and not ficticious bullsh1t.

No, I haven't looked at the journals and strategies on this site. Please trust me on this (I know you won't), these returns are NOT REAL. What you're seeing DOES NOT mean that 100% per year is possible and it certainly proves nothing. I could try to talk more to convince you of this, but there's no point really. You will have to find out through your own bitter experience that, in this game, what you see is most emphatically not what you get.

 

[LiamH]

True, the website is young, which is why we shouldn't be using it, don't you think? I don't really care how many trades are placed. I care about the various mkt regimes under which these systems may or may not have been tested. For example, as I said, if a strategy doesn't show me how it would have performed in 2007-08, I have no use for it.

No, I haven't looked at the journals and strategies on this site. Please trust me on this (I know you won't), these returns are NOT REAL. What you're seeing DOES NOT mean that 100% per year is possible and it certainly proves nothing. I could try to talk more to convince you of this, but there's no point really. You will have to find out through your own bitter experience that, in this game, what you see is most emphatically not what you get.

What I see is live calls and not lies. But meh, by the by, the numbers add up for me and I guess I will be in for one hell of a shock if you're right.

Can you tell me, on average how many pips you have made per month since you started trading? Nobody seems to want to answer this question but it provides the answer to this whole argument.

I bet that if you are trading, are profitable and have been going more than a year or two you have made more than 200 pips per month. If you haven't made 100% well then that's fine but you mustn't be using much (if any) leverage and you must be very risk averse.

 

[Martinghoul]

Yep, I was lurking around in Wasp's day.

I am not gullible and nor am I stupid. I've been interested in trading for years and for sure, at the beginning I thought it was my ticket but it's not. I do however plan to make a career of trading and I am pretty god damn certain that I can make 2000 pips per year without seeing such a drawdown that I would give up 🙂 Hell, half the risk and call it 4000 pips per year... Pretty sure I can achieve that most years too.

Do you trade? How many pips do you make yearly? That question to meanreversion too.

I am not accusing you of being stupid, but, no offense meant, you do sound naive.

What makes you so sure that you can make 2000 pips per year? What drawdown will make you give up?

Yes, I do trade, but I do it professionally, so my context is very different. I don't measure my performance in terms of yearly pips, so I am not sure how to answer your question. Our returns have been quite good in '09 and so far (knock on wood) in '10. However, I also survived '07 and '08, which were not pretty. Hence, my point about seeing the performance of all these marvelous strategies during the bad years.

 

[LiamH]

I am not accusing you of being stupid, but, no offense meant, you do sound naive.

What makes you so sure that you can make 2000 pips per year? What drawdown will make you give up?

Yes, I do trade, but I do it professionally, so my context is very different. I don't measure my performance in terms of yearly pips, so I am not sure how to answer your question. Our returns have been quite good in '09 and so far (knock on wood) in '10. However, I also survived '07 and '08, which were not pretty. Hence, my point about seeing the performance of all these marvelous strategies during the bad years.

OK, bad years come and go and this I believe is where proper money management saves the bacon.

If you trade professionally then I can only assume you trade a much larger account than I ever will. You say I'm naive but I make my choices as to which people I believe and which I don't. There are plenty of live calls on here and they aren't lies... unless the admins are in on it!?

My only point is this... To make 100% on an account in a year you need to make 2000 pips trading 0.05 % per pip. A 100 pip stop would mean 5% risk so that certainly doesn't mean every trade would be 5% risk...

Are you telling me that I cannot make 40 pips per trading week across the year. Assuming no amount of drawdown will stop me - I'll keep trading 50p per point for every £1000 in the initial account? That's 2000 pips of losses and I'm broke, 2000 pips of gains and I've doubled my money... ?

I don't understand how people can claim this isn't possible?

 

[Martinghoul]

Liam, man, there's plenty of live calls on here, indeed. You should try to take advantage of them.

There's nothing I can say that will convince you that your goal is possible and/or realistic or otherwise. You clearly want to go through the process yourself. I honestly wish you the best of luck. You sound like an intelligent and tenacious guy. I am sure you'll figure it all out.

 

[barjon]

..................Are you telling me that I cannot make 40 pips per trading week across the year. Assuming no amount of drawdown will stop me - I'll keep trading 50p per point for every £1000 in the initial account? That's 2000 pips of losses and I'm broke, 2000 pips of gains and I've doubled my money... ?...................

Liam

No amount of talking - even with professionals who really know their business - will convince you. So, as I said earlier http://www.trade2win.com/boards/gen...eturn-each-year-realistic-12.html#post1257086 just go ahead and do it. My house and furniture awaits 🙂.

cheers

jon

 

[D70]

OK, bad years come and go and this I believe is where proper money management saves the bacon.

If you trade professionally then I can only assume you trade a much larger account than I ever will. You say I'm naive but I make my choices as to which people I believe and which I don't. There are plenty of live calls on here and they aren't lies... unless the admins are in on it!?

My only point is this... To make 100% on an account in a year you need to make 2000 pips trading 0.05 % per pip. A 100 pip stop would mean 5% risk so that certainly doesn't mean every trade would be 5% risk...

Are you telling me that I cannot make 40 pips per trading week across the year. Assuming no amount of drawdown will stop me - I'll keep trading 50p per point for every £1000 in the initial account? That's 2000 pips of losses and I'm broke, 2000 pips of gains and I've doubled my money... ?

I don't understand how people can claim this isn't possible?

Liam,
Just wondering.
Why are you so obsessed with "pips" ?
Very few people who trade properly use such a term. It means nothing in the real world.
Further more, aiming for 2000 "pips" is also completely irrational become you will no doubt have good years and bad years. Account preservation should be far more of a focus than achieving x many pips per day / per week and hence per year. Plus, what will happen if you get to November and find yourself -489 pips? How will you count your "pips" if you had double size on the trade or perhaps only half size??

 

[LiamH]

Liam,
Just wondering.
Why are you so obsessed with "pips" ?
Very few people who trade properly use such a term. It means nothing in the real world.
Further more, aiming for 2000 "pips" is also completely irrational become you will no doubt have good years and bad years. Account preservation should be far more of a focus than achieving x many pips per day / per week and hence per year. Plus, what will happen if you get to November and find yourself -489 pips? How will you count your "pips" if you had double size on the trade or perhaps only half size??

Sorry, this was just used as an example but pips will have a direct correlation to the money I make as I personally will trade 1 micro lot (10p per pip) per £500 in the account. So, in my case 5000 pips will always equate to 100% of my account and in the case of my example 2000 pips will always equate to 100% of the account.

Forgot to add... about the -489 pips or whatever in November... Not an issue - All of these calculations were just as an example. I don't see how, if it takes 2000 pips per year, that it is not possible to make 100% per year.

All the experienced guys say I'm talking sh1t and that's something I must consider before I go live!

 

[D70]

Sorry, this was just used as an example but pips will have a direct correlation to the money I make as I personally will trade 1 micro lot (10p per pip) per £500 in the account. So, in my case 5000 pips will always equate to 100% of my account and in the case of my example 2000 pips will always equate to 100% of the account.

Forgot to add... about the -489 pips or whatever in November... Not an issue - All of these calculations were just as an example. I don't see how, if it takes 2000 pips per year, that it is not possible to make 100% per year.

All the experienced guys say I'm talking sh1t and that's something I must consider before I go live!

Are you planning on having a set number of contracts per trade?
(ie. Is your stop loss always the same?)

What I am getting at is that if you find a trade with a 20pip stop, you can have double the position to a trade with a 40pip stop. As soon as you trade like this, all pip count is void.

 

[LiamH]

Are you planning on having a set number of contracts per trade?
(ie. Is your stop loss always the same?)

What I am getting at is that if you find a trade with a 20pip stop, you can have double the position to a trade with a 40pip stop. As soon as you trade like this, all pip count is void.

Yeah, I fully understand that but I will be trading this way to stop myself from using too much leverage in my first proper year. Once into the second year the plan is to choose position size based on stop distance and a set % risk.

I blew a couple of grand spreadbetting a couple of years ago and want to make sure that this time, if the strategy isn't right or I turn out to be useless I don't blow the account before I realise what's gone wrong.

 

[robster970]

Yeah, I fully understand that but I will be trading this way to stop myself from using too much leverage in my first proper year. Once into the second year the plan is to choose position size based on stop distance and a set % risk.

I blew a couple of grand spreadbetting a couple of years ago and want to make sure that this time, if the strategy isn't right or I turn out to be useless I don't blow the account before I realise what's gone wrong.

Don't do it and do what D70 suggests from the outset. Setting a risk based stop that has no TA or FA context will just chew your account up. You want to set your stop in a place that confirms you were definitely wrong about the trade and limit your risk within that rather than the other way around.

example - if your max risk is say 20pips/points/whatever and you can see a good technical reason to set a stop at say 16, then trade the set-up. If you see a set-up where the risk is 40points away, don't trade it or wait for a better entry opportunity within your 20pip risk per trade.

finally, if you're entry is so good wrt to your max risk, there is no reason why you can't increase the number of contracts and stay within your risk which is what D70 is explaining.

 

[LiamH]

Don't do it and do what D70 suggests from the outset. Setting a risk based stop that has no TA or FA context will just chew your account up. You want to set your stop in a place that confirms you were definitely wrong about the trade and limit your risk within that rather than the other way around.

example - if your max risk is say 20pips/points/whatever and you can see a good technical reason to set a stop at say 16, then trade the set-up. If you see a set-up where the risk is 40points away, don't trade it or wait for a better entry opportunity within your 20pip risk per trade.

finally, if you're entry is so good wrt to your max risk, there is no reason why you can't increase the number of contracts and stay within your risk which is what D70 is explaining.

Cheers for this but I think you misunderstood.. My stop will be TA based but my % risk per trade will change. My stop could be 50pips or 150pips and my position size will be the same but my risk will change. 250 pip stop would be 5% - On average my stops will be between 50-150pips.

I understand why you are giving this advice and I agree but in my first year I feel happier trading with a set position size.

 

[D70]

Don't do it and do what D70 suggests from the outset. Setting a risk based stop that has no TA or FA context will just chew your account up. You want to set your stop in a place that confirms you were definitely wrong about the trade and limit your risk within that rather than the other way around.

example - if your max risk is say 20pips/points/whatever and you can see a good technical reason to set a stop at say 16, then trade the set-up. If you see a set-up where the risk is 40points away, don't trade it or wait for a better entry opportunity within your 20pip risk per trade.

finally, if you're entry is so good wrt to your max risk, there is no reason why you can't increase the number of contracts and stay within your risk which is what D70 is explaining.

Liam,
If you want a better measure, use your downside risk.
So for every trade risk 500 dollars (say). That is equal to 1% of your account (say). So judge your return by how many 500 dollars you make. So if you make 1500 dollars on your first trade. You have made 3 times your risk = 3R
It will then grow / decrease in line with your account and possibly be more useful.

 

[4xpipcounter]

Meanreversion, actually, no I'm not in a class of one. I might have an ego, but not so big that I believe I am the only one doing that. On the overall scale of things, that is only 180 pips for the week based on my 10% margining. As a matter a fact, I know for certainty that I am not the only one on this site that is doing that.
In trading forex, many opportunities present themselves on a daily basis. 180 pips is just one good bounce off of a key R or S and riding out the full correction. It is also catching a pullback on the 4-hour or daily chart, then entering within the trend and riding it the next leg UP or DOWN. Also, corrections with corrections happen within the smaller timeframes. It may be finding a bounce off the 15-min cloud when that TF is OB or OS and riding it 20 pips.
These are only examples, and the examples are too many to mention. There is also an advantage of 6 years of chart watching and studying trends and the corrective moves within trends. I am always in school and always learning, but the experience has enabled me to spot opportunities on the fly, rather than labor over them. A lot of my trades are not picture perfect, but they do net me the final desired result which is lots of postivie pips when I click close.

If you consider +18% in a week to be a bad week, you are in a class of one.

 

[LiamH]

Liam,
If you want a better measure, use your downside risk.
So for every trade risk 500 dollars (say). That is equal to 1% of your account (say). So judge your return by how many 500 dollars you make. So if you make 1500 dollars on your first trade. You have made 3 times your risk = 3R
It will then grow / decrease in line with your account and possibly be more useful.

Yeah, I do understand this method and it's the way I managed my position size last time. I don't really know why I suddenly decided it would be better to trade a set position size... I'll have a re-think.

 

[4xpipcounter]

D70, I know we all have a personal view on things, and maybe I don't live in the "real world", but I count pips adn enjoy it.
I know I'm digressing from your conversation with Liam, but my margin is exactly the same on all trades, so the pips are going to add to the same percentage of gains. I don't spend any time aiming for a quantatative amount. I just let them flow. If you are trading forex, when you hit the "close" button there is a defined amount of pips that have been gleaned from that trade
Also, your account is going to be "preserved" if you are getting lots of pips. Staying within the practical application of margin management will keep the account preserved, as long as the is an element of positivity in the end result of the trades.
If I have +489 pips in November, the way I would count them is like any other amount. I just keep counting until I am one short of +490 and rach it up to a bad year. That was meant to solicit just a little chuckle, but I did get your point. That is why IMO all traders need to develop a plan of consistency even in margining. I'm a straight percentage. Liam mentioned a variable, depended on the risk. In that realm, both of our approaches are consistent margining practices, whichI think you would agree.
Another thing about pips is I think many use it as a barometer. There is an expectancy of gains that is associated with the pips.

Liam,
Just wondering.
Why are you so obsessed with "pips" ?
Very few people who trade properly use such a term. It means nothing in the real world.
Further more, aiming for 2000 "pips" is also completely irrational become you will no doubt have good years and bad years. Account preservation should be far more of a focus than achieving x many pips per day / per week and hence per year. Plus, what will happen if you get to November and find yourself -489 pips? How will you count your "pips" if you had double size on the trade or perhaps only half size??

 

[4xpipcounter]

Folks, beyond any shadow of a doubt, I am not the exception to the rule. I don't understand how (Please, I know I'm bold and straighforward, but this is not an afront or a knock on anyone.) it can possibly be conceived that 40 pips per week is a big deal. I wouldn't be trading today if I honestly believe from the begining that 40 pips per week was such a big deal. At 10% margining at simple (not compund) interest equals 100% for the year. I'm only wondering, is everyone here really not getting that punitive amount per week? Is that really considered a big deal? If not, then there's your 100%.
Of course, there is one variable. The money is not withdrawn.
I'm also aware there are many claims in the internet, and we have read many on this site. But now, on this thread, for winning traders, I'm reading the extreme on the other end. 100% per year is not a big deal! But, my interpretation in this thread is that 20% per year is really good. The whole thing is just blowing my mind.

 

[meanreversion]

One can only assume you're immensely wealthy.

Double your money every year, without breaking a sweat.. by the time you're 50 you will be a multi-billionaire.

I'm happy for you. You'd make even more money at a hedge fund, where 20 pct a year is considered a decent return, but hey - what do they know!!