Anyone here made >$1 million trading?

[socomrider]

Hiya,

I specialise in small accounts. I've never been fortunate to have a lot of capital to play around with, and when i do make gains the money is often needed. However, i have managed to build up my capital- just very slowly.

You are right in not putting impossibly tight stops on just because you don't want to risk more than 2%. These rules just don't work with an account below about £1000. Saying that, you don't want to have large stops either as a few losses will wipe you out. I find that having a smaller account makes you more disciplined because you have to make every trade count and will not enter a trade unless you are very sure you are right. I'm not saying that things don't go wrong- they often do.

On small accounts i find breakouts a good way to trade. You can maintain a tight stop on breakouts, whilst at the same time maximising potential returns. e.g. you might be able to place a stop at 5 to 10 points, yet the return could be around 60 points or more. (i usually aim for 30, then close out half the position- some SB companies allow you to close part positions so you are holding less than the minimum bet... eg. minimum bet is £1/point... close £0.50p/point and you now only have £0.50 a point bet. You pay more money in spreads doing this so be careful).

Even though i have more trading capital available to me elsewhere, i tend to keep fairly small balances in my SB accounts even now because it just makes me take better decisions. Saying that, there has been a couple of occasions where a brilliant setup has come along and i saw huge profit coming yet was unable to take a large position due to lack of immediate funds.

Not sure what i'm writing here -think it's a load of drivel. So excuse me if it doesn't make sense. I'll stop now.

I think my main problem is as soon as I see profit I fail to sit tight. For example going long on the Eurex (with it's bullish behaviour has given me the most profit) for a few days I sat at negative figures and because I started to worry I closed as soon as I started making profit, which eventually would of made me much more had I stayed in.

My plan has always been, though, to do as you say and take small profits which hopefully will give me the capital to play in the bigger markets. Having tasted forex today I think i'm hooked which will be either a good thing or my downfall

 

[chilltrader]

It shouldn't be too hard to get to £1,000,000 really if you start with a decent amount of capital.

I made a very modest 60 points on the DOW today. At £2 a point that didn't equate to much. However, if i had £16,667 per point- i would have made a million. What a missed opportunity that was. (and yes, i do believe a SB company may take this kind of bet- look at that footballer guy that has so far lost £300 million through IG betting £300,000 a point and more).

Anyway, in the above example, the trade only went against me 5 points. So, if you had about £200,000 capital and just sat around and waited for a stonking opportunity then jumped on board... an easy £1,000,000

I just realised- the original post was in $'s not £'s- therefore it would be even easier .

Interested to know about that footballer ... do you have any link?

 

[chilltrader]

Duh!
How stupid am I?

Thanks! BSD

You forgot rule #1: TD is never wrong

 

[UKtradergirl]

I think my main problem is as soon as I see profit I fail to sit tight. For example going long on the Eurex (with it's bullish behaviour has given me the most profit) for a few days I sat at negative figures and because I started to worry I closed as soon as I started making profit, which eventually would of made me much more had I stayed in.

My plan has always been, though, to do as you say and take small profits which hopefully will give me the capital to play in the bigger markets. Having tasted forex today I think i'm hooked which will be either a good thing or my downfall

I didn't mean take small profits. Let them run as long as they are increasing. Just keep moving your stop. Your profits must always be bigger than the losses you take.

Good luck with forex. I hope things continue to improve and in time you will have a more manageable account.

 

[UKtradergirl]

Interested to know about that footballer ... do you have any link?

Newcastle boss Mike Ashley loses £300million in bet on HBOS - mirror.co.uk

Mike Ashley, that was him. Heard about him a few months back when he lost £129 million. But oh no he didn't quit... he doubled up instead hehe.

 

[chilltrader]

Newcastle boss Mike Ashley loses £300million in bet on HBOS - mirror.co.uk

Mike Ashley, that was him. Heard about him a few months back when he lost £129 million. But oh no he didn't quit... he doubled up instead hehe.

Can't happen to nicer people :clap: :clap:

 

[UKtradergirl]

Can't happen to nicer people :clap: :clap:

Lesson: ALWAYS use a stop loss. (mental or physical- just use one)

It's also helpful to know that IGIndex now have £300 million and so won't have any trouble paying out my few hundred's of £'s here and there. hehe.

 

[Chorlton]

Hiya,

I specialise in small accounts. I've never been fortunate to have a lot of capital to play around with, and when i do make gains the money is often needed. However, i have managed to build up my capital- just very slowly.

You are right in not putting impossibly tight stops on just because you don't want to risk more than 2%. These rules just don't work with an account below about £1000. Saying that, you don't want to have large stops either as a few losses will wipe you out. I find that having a smaller account makes you more disciplined because you have to make every trade count and will not enter a trade unless you are very sure you are right. I'm not saying that things don't go wrong- they often do.

On small accounts i find breakouts a good way to trade. You can maintain a tight stop on breakouts, whilst at the same time maximising potential returns. e.g. you might be able to place a stop at 5 to 10 points, yet the return could be around 60 points or more. (i usually aim for 30, then close out half the position- some SB companies allow you to close part positions so you are holding less than the minimum bet... eg. minimum bet is £1/point... close £0.50p/point and you now only have £0.50 a point bet. You pay more money in spreads doing this so be careful).

Even though i have more trading capital available to me elsewhere, i tend to keep fairly small balances in my SB accounts even now because it just makes me take better decisions. Saying that, there has been a couple of occasions where a brilliant setup has come along and i saw huge profit coming yet was unable to take a large position due to lack of immediate funds.

Not sure what i'm writing here -think it's a load of drivel. So excuse me if it doesn't make sense. I'll stop now.

Hi UKTradeGirl,

With regard to your "day trading" account, can I ask what SB company and Charting platform you use?

Thanks,

Chorlton

 

[socomrider]

Newcastle boss Mike Ashley loses £300million in bet on HBOS - mirror.co.uk

Mike Ashley, that was him. Heard about him a few months back when he lost £129 million. But oh no he didn't quit... he doubled up instead hehe.

I would seriously love to see what the IG Index office looked like when that bet was closed :cheesy: I wonder if that picture was taken before or after

 

[montmorencyt2w]

I think my main problem is as soon as I see profit I fail to sit tight. For example going long on the Eurex (with it's bullish behaviour has given me the most profit) for a few days I sat at negative figures and because I started to worry I closed as soon as I started making profit, which eventually would of made me much more had I stayed in.

My plan has always been, though, to do as you say and take small profits which hopefully will give me the capital to play in the bigger markets. Having tasted forex today I think i'm hooked which will be either a good thing or my downfall

EUR/GBP and EUR/CHF was going crazy this evening. It would have been possible to make a bomb. I was late getting in, but managed to chase a few points down.

Oil was also a bit crazy (so no change there then).

You are right; Forex is addictive. Was probably the last thing I expected to be trading when I started, but I once I tried it, I couldn't leave it alone.

By the way, beware of early success. The best lesson is to lose a packet early on.

 

[UKtradergirl]

Hi UKTradeGirl,

With regard to your "day trading" account, can I ask what SB company and Charting platform you use?

Thanks,

Chorlton

At the moment, Tradefair. Mostly because of their 1 point spread on the FTSE. I have an old account with easy2spreadbet as well- they don't take new customers anymore- but you can bet just £0.50 a point there so i use it when i want to try out new strategies with real money for the first time.

I use the charts from IGIndex which are very good indeed (yes, i know they are based on IG's prices, but they do very closely match, infact i have noticed on occasion they have actually led Tradefair's prices and i've been able to get in a couple of points earlier).

Umm... yes i have accounts everywhere . I just have several different styles/methods i use to trade and i like to keep track of progress on each separately. Drop the ones that are not so profitable and keep the ones that are . I think i'm going to stick with IG for the bulk of my trades though, and where most of my money is, purely because i trust them more with my money.

 

[gooseman]

I would seriously love to see what the IG Index office looked like when that bet was closed :cheesy: I wonder if that picture was taken before or after

if he was punting size i guarantee he'll have been fully hedged so they'd just take hthe spread

 

[UKtradergirl]

if he was punting size i guarantee he'll have been fully hedged so they'd just take hthe spread

Let's see... £800,000 a point. How big is the spread? Let's be conservative and guess 4 points? (it's currently 18 on IG but it's out of hours right now).

Hmmm... £3.2 million from spread alone.

Do you think they will have hedged him all the way down though? They might have closed their own positions when they saw HBOS plummeting so they could profit all the more.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

From the photo, he looks like he is a man who could be easily distracted, and plenty there to distract him....


Never trade and flirt at the same time.

 

[Chorlton]

At the moment, Tradefair. Mostly because of their 1 point spread on the FTSE. I have an old account with easy2spreadbet as well- they don't take new customers anymore- but you can bet just £0.50 a point there so i use it when i want to try out new strategies with real money for the first time.

I use the charts from IGIndex which are very good indeed (yes, i know they are based on IG's prices, but they do very closely match, infact i have noticed on occasion they have actually led Tradefair's prices and i've been able to get in a couple of points earlier).

Umm... yes i have accounts everywhere . I just have several different styles/methods i use to trade and i like to keep track of progress on each separately. Drop the ones that are not so profitable and keep the ones that are . I think i'm going to stick with IG for the bulk of my trades though, and where most of my money is, purely because i trust them more with my money.

HI UKTradeGirl,

Thanks for the reply. So if I understand correctly you are using IGIndex for the real-time price data but actually trade through TradeFair?

 

[UKtradergirl]

HI UKTradeGirl,

Thanks for the reply. So if I understand correctly you are using IGIndex for the real-time price data but actually trade through TradeFair?

Yes, using 1 minute time frame. Works great.

 

[donaldduke]

Hi guys,

I'm going to play the devils advocate here, right?

I doubt anyone who ever uses these forums has ever made this sum of money from Forex, or anything close. Anyone disagree?

A million USD until very recently was only about 500K GBP, with the recent fall in the GBP its now more.
But still its not alot of money to make over a several year period and after tax you pocket even less.

 

[counter_violent]

It shouldn't be too hard to get to £1,000,000 really if you start with a decent amount of capital.

This is correct....so 2 - 3 million ?

 

[UKtradergirl]

This is correct....so 2 - 3 million ?

Yes, exactly!

Although i was thinking i could be smart and start with 999,999 instead. Bet £1 a point during a breakout- and grab profit quick- hey presto- 1 million £'s.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

Interesting. I have mentioned the following guy's videos elsewhere, but it is relevant here too:

There are a lot of educational trading-videos by David Waring on YouTube, and also (free)on his own website. Some of them deal with FX fundamentals, and those I've looked at were quite interesting. This is the list of those on YouTube, and there is a pointer to his website on this page:

YouTube - InformedTrades's Channel

Here is one, for example, about the economic news releases that affect the US dollar:
YouTube - 120. Economic Releases that Move the US Dollar


Regards,
M.