I have seen many mathematical projections to argue a case on getting from A to B in terms of equity growth. The problem is that the market has a say and it does not cooperate regardless of our hope or wishes.
Whatever you say, hope or plan is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether your actual performance matches with expectation. Any expectation is not real until you can demonstrate to your own self that you can perform. Minimum period is 6 to 12 months of actual trading.
Your goal of $30 a day is doable on a $1000 account but requires a focus on how it can be done. You need to do a number of things.
1)You need to learn to trade with proper money management. Typically it is 1 % but 2 % is on the outer end. 4 % is just too high. That is why you are getting such big swings on your account.
2)Don't get fixated on your account equity swings. It will impact on your trading performance. Keep your risk down and focus on your trading process. The end result will take care of itself. Day to day equity swing is not important if you are in the long haul.
3)Specialise in the instrument and the market you want to trade in. Don't jump all over the place from oil to gold to CAD and to SGD. Each market has unique characteristics and you need to know what they are if you wish to succeed. I once heard a top ranking fx currency trader said that all his trading life he only traded the European/US session and would not know how to trade the Asia session. You need to trade with an edge if you want to succeed.
So how do you get $30 a day on $1000? If you have a $1000 account you can trade one mini lot if you leverage it by 10. This is the outer edge of leverage to trade professionally. You can trade the EURUSD pair during the European/US session which typically has an average daily range of 60 pips. Extracting 30 pips during the session will get you your 30 pips and $30. You close your position at the nd of the session if you are not stopped out or your profit target is not reached. By just trading one position in a market you specialise in and closing it out at the end of the session will contain your risk and ensure a reasonable chance of success.
Of course, any projections are obviously theoretical. When I talk about these projections I assume to be talking to more knowledgeable traders than myself so as far I am concerned I don't need to keep saying "market dependant" because it obviously goes without saying. Also, in regards to your comment about proving it over 6 to 12 months, I also agree.
I do however question your comment about 4% being to high. It may be for you, or it may even be for me, but a blanket statement of it being too high is just not accurate. I cautiously say this because I do realise that I don't even have 6 months of trading under my belt but from what I can see, I am very comfortable risking a cap of 4% on a trade. I'm not sure why you said my account has big swings... I have not been experiencing negative swings in my account. I did say on a thread somewhere here that I lost 15% of my account Monday last week but that was a direct cause of not following my plan and instead being impulsive. Or perhaps you are eluding to the fact that I am down about 40-45% of my capital? I wouldn't class this as a swing, not in the sense I feel you are talking about anyway. I lost most of that money in the first 3 months when I was risking 1-2% per trade (with a few impulsive trades also), for the last 2 months I have been making steady progress, the last month being 4% trades.
I feel a little uncomfortable disagreeing with you because, again, I realise that it's likely you have far more experience than I do, but if someone is playing the percentage game then who are we to say 4% isn't proper money management? It may be more than you are willing to risk, or even for the next person but 4% is "proper money management" if it was established to be a cap. It just happens to be a little bit more risk than some people might take. Also, I don't really care about the small equity swings anymore and haven't for over a month (maybe I will when I have a big account). I figured out a long time ago that the money in my account will ebb and flow...this is totally normal. Obviously we would like to go into the green immediately but a lot of the time it doesn't, particularly when paying a spread. In that case I go into the red by a few pips immediately and then might very well go further into the red as my trade retraces or something, but from my experience, it will come right more often than not provided I take the best trades.
In regards to number 3 where you say about sticking to 1 or few markets. While this may be great advice to some, I feel it loses some relevance for me as I am training to become a discretionary trader. Of course a discretionary trader can stick to just 1 or 2 markets but if I was to do that then it would completely contradict my conscious reasoning for being discretionary. I do however agree with you that each market has it's own personality or behaviour somewhat unique to itself and this needs to be understood or risk getting steam rolled by something unforeseen which could have been seen if enough study was carried out. While I say this, I do try to limit the amount of markets I trade, but it's far more than 1. When it comes to me making trades based on macro reasoning then the markets I can trade are greatly reduced as my macro knowledge doesn't extend very far but for the likes of trading pullbacks, channels and breakouts, I find that this can successfully be carried out on a wide array of markets.
I do not want to be risking 4% per trade for too long. As soon as I can grow my account, the sooner I can reduce the capital per trade. This is always the plan...get to a point where I can make a living risking only 1% per trade. I also use 50/1 leverage, I have the option of 100/1 too but I have no interest in going that high. The leverage is also something I plan on reducing as my account grows, but at this early stage 50/1 levers and 4% per trade maximum sounds right for me. I could of course turn around next month and decide that I need to reduce these, but as of right now, everything seems OK to me. I am aware.
It is worth noting that I limit the amount of trades that I take at any one time. I completely realise that the more attention I place on one trade, the less attention I give to other trades. Hence the reason I often only roll with 1 trade at a time, but I can go up to 4 or so. But keeping it to 1-2 is preferred
