Quick Question for Experienced Traders

[kugan]

Just an idea, not sure if it's an old one, or a naive one but I'd like to hear some thoughts on it. I'm new to trading, and am still learning the ropes but I was thinking about this possibility, perhaps as a goal to work towards in terms of consistency and skill.

Are there any traders here who can consistently grow their accounts by 4% in a day? This doesn't seem like too huge a figure... am I wrong? If you can do this all 5 days of the week, and get a 20% profit at the end of it, regularly, great.

If you start with £1000, and can make 4%, £40 a day, at the end of the week the account has grown 20% to £1200. If, using the same risk/profit ratios you used to get that £40 a day were kept in place and applied to the larger, £1200 account, and you continued to compound profits whilst keeping in place the profit/risk ratios you use, am I right in thinking that it would take less than a year to reach £1million? I'm sure if you're experienced traders you'd all be able to calculate the figures yourselves, but for my excitement I like to watch the numbers grow (week by week) and so will post them here.

Jan
£1000
£1200
£1440
£1728
Feb
£2073.60
£2488.32
£2985.98
£3583.18
Mar
£4299.81
£5159.78
£6191.73
£7430.08
April
£8916.10
£10699.32
£12839.18
£15407.02
May
£18488.42
£22186.11
£26623.33
£31947.99
June
£38337.59
£46005.11
£55206.14
£66247.37
July
£79496.84
£95396.21
£114475.45
£137370.55
August
£164844.66
£197813.59
£237376.31
£284851.57
September
£341821.89
£410186.27
£492223.52
£590668.22
October
£708801.87
£850562.24
£1020674.69

By the end of the year, the total amount would be £6319748.71.

Now!

I am a realistic person, and am bracing myself for a bubble popping. I know trading doesn't occur EVERY single week, and some losses are to be expected but it's mostly the idea of compounding profits, whilst maintaining profit/risk ratios. As I am not yet a consistent, experienced trader, and am mostly learning things using demo accounts and online resources, as well as the forums here, and know there's far more to learn once REAL money is being used, I would like to pose this idea to any experienced trader who has any thoughts on the idea, if they already do this, or why it simply would not work, and why not. At the moment it seems like an excellent motivation to become consistent, and skillful.

Thanks!

 

[virtuos0]

Just an idea, not sure if it's an old one, or a naive one but I'd like to hear some thoughts on it. I'm new to trading, and am still learning the ropes but I was thinking about this possibility, perhaps as a goal to work towards in terms of consistency and skill.

Are there any traders here who can consistently grow their accounts by 4% in a day? This doesn't seem like too huge a figure... am I wrong? If you can do this all 5 days of the week, and get a 20% profit at the end of it, regularly, great.

If you start with £1000, and can make 4%, £40 a day, at the end of the week the account has grown 20% to £1200. If, using the same risk/profit ratios you used to get that £40 a day were kept in place and applied to the larger, £1200 account, and you continued to compound profits whilst keeping in place the profit/risk ratios you use, am I right in thinking that it would take less than a year to reach £1million? I'm sure if you're experienced traders you'd all be able to calculate the figures yourselves, but for my excitement I like to watch the numbers grow (week by week) and so will post them here.

Jan
£1000
£1200
£1440
£1728
Feb
£2073.60
£2488.32
£2985.98
£3583.18
Mar
£4299.81
£5159.78
£6191.73
£7430.08
April
£8916.10
£10699.32
£12839.18
£15407.02
May
£18488.42
£22186.11
£26623.33
£31947.99
June
£38337.59
£46005.11
£55206.14
£66247.37
July
£79496.84
£95396.21
£114475.45
£137370.55
August
£164844.66
£197813.59
£237376.31
£284851.57
September
£341821.89
£410186.27
£492223.52
£590668.22
October
£708801.87
£850562.24
£1020674.69

By the end of the year, the total amount would be £6319748.71.

Now!

I am a realistic person, and am bracing myself for a bubble popping. I know trading doesn't occur EVERY single week, and some losses are to be expected but it's mostly the idea of compounding profits, whilst maintaining profit/risk ratios. As I am not yet a consistent, experienced trader, and am mostly learning things using demo accounts and online resources, as well as the forums here, and know there's far more to learn once REAL money is being used, I would like to pose this idea to any experienced trader who has any thoughts on the idea, if they already do this, or why it simply would not work, and why not. At the moment it seems like an excellent motivation to become consistent, and skillful.

Thanks!

To achieve 4% a day your risk would be enormous, so the chances are you are just going to blow up.

The only reason you need to contemplate those daft percentage returns is because with £1000 you would be extremely undercapitalised.

 

[Rhody Trader]

Are there any traders here who can consistently grow their accounts by 4% in a day? This doesn't seem like too huge a figure... am I wrong? If you can do this all 5 days of the week, and get a 20% profit at the end of it, regularly, great.

I am a realistic person, and am bracing myself for a bubble popping.

Consider your bubble burst. A consistent 4% per month would be excellent by most measures.

 

[Shakone]

4% on a day is not that hard to do. You risk 1-2% per trade and the trades go well on a particular day, and you have 4% or more easily. But to do that every day or on average is very difficult. That isn't to say it can't be done, there are people that have made huge % gains over a short period.

The idea of compounding is right though, and one that many traders use. But perhaps set your sights a bit lower than 4% a day. Because not only is it difficult, but it might put pressure on you to hit that target each and every day which leads to excessive risk or bad trading, and like virtuoso said, there is a good chance of you blowing up then. I'm not even sure daily targets are a good idea.

 

[jaketraderboy]

4% is achievable and yes you need to account for a few losing days a month but the main problem, from my experience, would be the enticemnet to increase your lot size. I struggled doing this too soon, as many traders probably did, and for some reason, even though my trading was the same, just seeing those higher numbers, when down especially, makes your brain work differently.

Any body else experienced this?

I can now trade higher lot sizes with ease but took me a while to get used to it. Even though there is no difference to the style, strategy, risk structure etc. MAD!

 

[Skill Leverage]

Consider your bubble burst. A consistent 4% per month would be excellent by most measures.

Maybe for a big manager, but not for a small local. The thing you've got to remember is that % returns become much harder the more money you are dealing with. Returning 400% in a year would be far from uncommon for a prop trader in their first year, but for a guy managing hundreds of millions, it becomes much harder for him to effectively utilise his capital.

 

[Skill Leverage]

P.S I know you know this already Rhody, I'm just saying the guy isn't as stupid as most people would think, but making 4% a day would be a fairly impressive feat - it's all well and good in theory, but going for that long without even at least a breakeven day would be nothing short of miraculous, and if you lose 4% in a day, you have to make 4.17% back the next day just to be even.

 

[Masquerade]

It's very possible - but psychology has a huge part to play in it.

 

[Skill Leverage]

Also you have to consider if you're making 200 quid from a grand using a 2 lot, by October you're trading 1700 lots, which is a tad harder to execute.

 

[Hilarymannah]

Kugan,..Don't listen to all the naysayers,...4% ROI per day is easily achievable.
The only demon you will have to battle with, is when your account grows and the relevant percentage outlay is the same (more naughts on the end).
This is a psychological game, and most folk are unable to deal with the alteration in mindset.
Imagine walking a four inch beam that is placed on the ground,..easy you say,...now raise it a couple hundred feet!
There in lies your challenge, get it right, and the skies your limit,.literally.

 

[Skill Leverage]

4% ROI per day is not easily achievable, for the very reasons you have given. Saying that the only demon you'll have to battle with in your trading is your own mind is like saying the only thing stopping me from being a film star is my face.

 

[Shakone]

easily achievable

lol, nonsense.

Achievable - yes. Easily - no.

 

[Masquerade]

Hilary is right, if you're semi-decent it's achievable to make 4% ROI in a day. Maybe not EVERY single day though. You can lump plenty of size on in the FX market and the real problem is going to be the psychology of dealing with ever-increasing sums of money.

 

[Hilarymannah]

Skill Leverage,.....having just read your comment,..me thinks you have a long way to go before you raise the bar,..keep giving advice though, if it makes you feel good! : )
Tip for anyone day trading forex,...use the five minute charts

All chaos is order in disguise.

 

[Skill Leverage]

Skill Leverage,.....having just read your comment,..me thinks you have a long way to go before you raise the bar,..keep giving advice though, if it makes you feel good! : )
Tip for anyone day trading forex,...use the five minute charts

All chaos is order in disguise.

Epic, epic, epic fail.

4% every day, for a year, you show me one person that's done that and I'll show you 10,000 who haven't. You certainly haven't, with nuggets of genius like that!

I'm off to laugh heartily now. Catch you all tomorrow.

 

[virtuos0]

Skill Leverage,.....having just read your comment,..me thinks you have a long way to go before you raise the bar,..keep giving advice though, if it makes you feel good! : )
Tip for anyone day trading forex,...use the five minute charts

All chaos is order in disguise.

You're as clueless and fake as they come.

 

[Hilarymannah]

Kugan,..I hope you're taking heed, and noticing how the folk who find it hard to make 4% per day seem to be getting quite irrate.
Emotions and ego play a large part in trading,..some take longer to learn this fundamental truth than others.
Keep an eye on the price,..it'll always tell you when to pull the trigger!

 

[Shakone]

Hilary, how much are you risking per trade in order to make 4% per day?

Also I don't think many people are irate. It is achievable, but to say it is easily done is just wrong. If it was easy, almost everyone could do it in a short amount of time. But you know that isn't true, right?

 

[Hilarymannah]

Shakone,..2% of my basket,...
BTW,..Anything is easy when you master it.
Kugan was looking for a heads up from an experienced day trader, I fit that bill, and explained to "him" how easy it could be for him also.
My guess, is most folk who find it hard to acheive 4% ROI per day will try and slander my advice.
I'm thinking that's not what Kugan was asking though,..maybe

 

[kugan]

Afternoon all,

Thanks for all the replies, keep them coming. The purpose of this thread is for lil ol' n00b me to learn your opinions on what is realistic, and what isn't, identifying the potentials, and identifying the skills and disciplines I'd need to go about exploiting them. So!

-- Virtuos0, having a look through your other posts you seem to be a person that considers pessimism to only be realism. I'm not sure how good a trader you are, and although I'm certain you've more experience in trading than me, calling the figures daft for being large isn't particularly useful to me. As I said, I am new to trading, and am looking to understand the potentials involved. This process always involves some bubble bursting, but to say a thing like "the chances are you are just going to blow up" isn't useful to me, and implies your method of exploring potentials is by delineating previous failures and marking them as rigid limits.

--Rhody Trader, Mr Forman, sir, your dispassionate bubble bursting was more appreciated, thank you. I also had a look at your book on amazon, is there a distributor for the book in the U.K?

--Shakone, thanks for your reply. If you don't think daily targets are a good idea, what would you consider a realistic weekly target? Or perhaps even a monthly target?

--jaketraderboy, thanks for your reply. Do you now compound your profits?

--Skill Leverage, thanks for your reply (and for defending my intelligence!). What would you consider a more realistic daily target? The 4% target, if it was too high, was one I picked quickly for the calculations; mostly because I found a few posters on these forums averaging 30-50 pip/day profits. If I were to become as competent (ambition!) traders as they claim to be, using the current spread betting platform I use now, the minimum £/pip stake across most instruments is £3, and 4% then seems not so ridiculous.

--Masquerade, thanks for your reply. Psychology I imagine is a large part of it, and another area for me to develop discipline in. How's your trading going, if you don't mind me asking, and do you have a daily target for yourself?

--Hilarymannah, your profile says that you're male, which are you? Just curious. I looked it up and apparently Hilary was originally a Latin boy's name- Hilarius. Trivia! Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the support just as much as the naysayers for my learning about trading, but obviously...encouragement is more pleasant to hear! I also didn't appreciate Virtuos0's next comment, which seemed to be informed more by pessimism or personal bitterness than experience. How's your trading going, if you don't mind me asking, and do you have a daily target for yourself? And do you compound your profits?

Thanks again!