By "pro" I simply mean "making a living solely by trading". Please, I do not want to hear about specific trading methods, specific fortunes gained from forex, huge gains in a month (typically based on risking enormous amounts per trade) or who the popular trading gurus are. I would just like a few specific pieces of information, without all the baggage that typically accompanies these types of threads. I am trying to get a *realistic* idea of how pro traders trade (again, not referring to their methods/systems).
1) How often do you trade on average?
2) What is your average win/loss ratio?
3) What is your average win in terms of percentage of risk? I.e., if the trade had a 50 pip stop loss and you closed out at 50 pips profit, that would be 100%. I am not interested in number of pips or dollars.
The reason I ask is that there seems to be an enormous amount of contradictory information. It is hard to sift the realistic responses from those posted by dreamers, scammers, paid posters, and the various Cults of Personality. I have been reading everything I can for the past two months but don't seem to be any closer to having a truly realistic idea of what it means to be a successful trader, i.e., one who can live off nothing but trading. Is a 60% win/loss realistic? How about 80%? Is it realistic to think one can take several trades a day and come out ahead most days?
Also, common responses simply don't seem to be reconcilable with oft-repeated warnings and advice. For example, it is commonly stated that to make a living, you must start with $100k of capital, or preferably more. This goes hand in hand with the "it's a marathon, not a sprint" mantra. Yet with the win/loss ratios often claimed, I can't seem to understand why this would be the case. With a 60% win/loss (many, many claim much better results) and, say, 3 trades per day, risking a fairly conservative 1% per trade, that would result in an income of around $5000 a month by the end of the first year, if one started with $10,000 in capital. And of course it would snowball from there.
I guess I just don't understand how one can be profitable but not VERY profitable, if that makes sense. If one wins significantly more often than one loses, and keeps risking that reasonable percentage, I don't see how they are not making quite a lot of money in a short amount of time. By "short amount of time", I don't mean three months after discovering forex or anything like that; I mean, say, a year after hitting that point at which you become consistently successful; that point might come after years of losing and of course is different for everyone.
Commandments like "you need $100k+ of capital to make a living" would seem to imply that the win/loss is typically something like 11:10, for example, where you only eke out one net profitable trade out of a whole slew of trades, so at a reasonable risk %, you would need large capital for that profit to be enough to live on. But at the same time, a win/loss ratio that poor would mean that you are basically just flipping a coin. So then you get to risk:reward, and having that one win be far larger than any of the losses; and if that is the only realistic way to do it, I would like to know.
It seems the vast majority of professional traders work for banks, or, better yet, pander for "students". I guess I have a hard time believing a trader is really trading 200 lots per trade (making up to $100,000 per successful trade), yet still bothers to charge people a few hundred dollars for a trading blog or signal emails. Things like this really make it hard to believe that anyone is really trading for themselves and making a living year after year, and if that is the case I'd like to know so I can have realistic expectations. Obviously I understand that most people making a living trading for themselves wouldn't likely be hanging out on forums anyway, which is another consideration.
I know a lot of times the answers are "find what works for you, there are many ways to do it, etc", but I guess what I'm asking is: Are there? The people who say that tend to say they are doing just that, but soon enough they seem to end up charging for their blogs, emails, forums, videos, etc, or working for banks or other firms, which suggests to me that they are not as successful as they claim.
1) How often do you trade on average?
2) What is your average win/loss ratio?
3) What is your average win in terms of percentage of risk? I.e., if the trade had a 50 pip stop loss and you closed out at 50 pips profit, that would be 100%. I am not interested in number of pips or dollars.
The reason I ask is that there seems to be an enormous amount of contradictory information. It is hard to sift the realistic responses from those posted by dreamers, scammers, paid posters, and the various Cults of Personality. I have been reading everything I can for the past two months but don't seem to be any closer to having a truly realistic idea of what it means to be a successful trader, i.e., one who can live off nothing but trading. Is a 60% win/loss realistic? How about 80%? Is it realistic to think one can take several trades a day and come out ahead most days?
Also, common responses simply don't seem to be reconcilable with oft-repeated warnings and advice. For example, it is commonly stated that to make a living, you must start with $100k of capital, or preferably more. This goes hand in hand with the "it's a marathon, not a sprint" mantra. Yet with the win/loss ratios often claimed, I can't seem to understand why this would be the case. With a 60% win/loss (many, many claim much better results) and, say, 3 trades per day, risking a fairly conservative 1% per trade, that would result in an income of around $5000 a month by the end of the first year, if one started with $10,000 in capital. And of course it would snowball from there.
I guess I just don't understand how one can be profitable but not VERY profitable, if that makes sense. If one wins significantly more often than one loses, and keeps risking that reasonable percentage, I don't see how they are not making quite a lot of money in a short amount of time. By "short amount of time", I don't mean three months after discovering forex or anything like that; I mean, say, a year after hitting that point at which you become consistently successful; that point might come after years of losing and of course is different for everyone.
Commandments like "you need $100k+ of capital to make a living" would seem to imply that the win/loss is typically something like 11:10, for example, where you only eke out one net profitable trade out of a whole slew of trades, so at a reasonable risk %, you would need large capital for that profit to be enough to live on. But at the same time, a win/loss ratio that poor would mean that you are basically just flipping a coin. So then you get to risk:reward, and having that one win be far larger than any of the losses; and if that is the only realistic way to do it, I would like to know.
It seems the vast majority of professional traders work for banks, or, better yet, pander for "students". I guess I have a hard time believing a trader is really trading 200 lots per trade (making up to $100,000 per successful trade), yet still bothers to charge people a few hundred dollars for a trading blog or signal emails. Things like this really make it hard to believe that anyone is really trading for themselves and making a living year after year, and if that is the case I'd like to know so I can have realistic expectations. Obviously I understand that most people making a living trading for themselves wouldn't likely be hanging out on forums anyway, which is another consideration.
I know a lot of times the answers are "find what works for you, there are many ways to do it, etc", but I guess what I'm asking is: Are there? The people who say that tend to say they are doing just that, but soon enough they seem to end up charging for their blogs, emails, forums, videos, etc, or working for banks or other firms, which suggests to me that they are not as successful as they claim.