Can YOU make money as a trader?

Trade however you want, but what I see is this...

You start by opening simultaneous Buy and Sell orders of equal size. This is dumb. Assuming you close each of these as separate "Close" orders later, you just handed over to your broker two spreads. (If you figure out how to Close-one-order-by-another-opposite-order, you could save 1 spread, but you still wasted one).
(Oh, and by the way, if you hold your two trades open at the Daily rollover time NY 17:00, you're going to pay a bigger swap than your broker will pay you, so you're also losing more with each swap cycle).

The price next goes down. Your Buy is negative; your Sell is just as positive. (You're still negative by 2 spreads).

Next -- for whatever reason, you don't describe -- you decide to open another Buy order at the lower price. It goes a bit negative, but then you open another Buy. When price happens to climb, at least one Buy is profitable, and perhaps the 2nd one, but you end up Closing your original Sell in profit (you pay 1 spread). That, however, just left your just-as-negative Buy order unbalanced, so what you really did is you went one more order long. (Now you are 3X long). At some point higher up, you close the remaining 3 orders. In total, you paid 4 spreads, 1 of which was a total waste. The other 3 are the same spreads you would pay to make 3 independent Buy orders which you later closed at the same time.

You traded GBP* pairs. The trends of each were up. You took your Buy/Sell pair after just a small pullback. Your later Buy trades were at larger pullbacks. Eventually the next wave up occurred, and in the end you got a small piece of it. It would be better, IMHO, to just make 3 Buy decisions by themselves at the points that you made your 2nd and 3rd Buys, and your Close of the profitable Sell (which leaves your original Buy naked, so really, you just made the 3rd Buy at that moment).

I'm only giving a few comments. I've no interest to comment further, nor code anything, but maybe someone else wants to "help".

Good luck.

i think thats not true

No, I am not capable of producing new major currency units by myself.

Yes you can The question is do you want ti to be forever? Yes, with large enough AUM you can down tune the risk to like max 0.5% or even less per trade or whatever is "golden parameter" for you.. It used to be 2% max exposure per trade...

But, I believe MOST (retail) traders would like to get millions out from 100USD, if that... Is it possible? Yes. Will it happen forever? Most probably not...
Because stakes are high AF if you want to make HEAVY multiplication factor... I mean most hedge fund manager etc (don't get me into the investment bankers even) struggle to beat S&P, let alone surpassing the industry (Hedge Fund) average. But yeah, they have substantial better risk management, beyond that "one-size-fits-all-ultimate-always-true-risk management tool" known as Risk:Reward (which is suppose to be 1:1 at "worse", for most rookie trader", but of course 1:4 is what is all about, according to rookies and failing traders. If they would actually take the time to check math-stat beyond that tool, to see it in the big picture, not just as stand-alone trade, things might be different... But ok, I'm maybe going to deep now...

So again, IT IS possible... But as most dream (and that is ok!) about making millions out of thin air, that can happen and it did! But many think it will go like this forever. Similar to some boxers that they think will never get old, out of shape or that their PEAK is yet to come (when they are like 40)... Has to be realistic, it can happen, but you have to KNOW that it might not last for long, because those kind of insane returns, thousands or tents of thousands % return is hardly to be sustainable or you really found a holy grail and have problems with keeping your super divine power unnoticed, covert.

So this question in thread is so BROAD that the answer is 100% yes. But I think most mean, can you make millions out of pocket change... The answer is, yes, it is possible but FEW will touch this and much fewer will keep it because some think they "found it".

It is not uncommon for people to compare trading to jobs, bank deposits or whatever "fixed income" do they have in mind. Trading is, real one any way..., is about WINDOW of opportunity. You do not know how long will it last, after/if you find/notice it.

I knew a guy that found a window, he basically went from zero to hero overnight... making 10k per trade even... out of 5k deposit... But then he said in a way... or acted like this.. "ok, found it, solved, let's go to nice spending spree over the world and once I come back I will print millions out of this strategy"... We even warned him about possibility of the time window.. and his response was "it will last FOREVER". So he came back, after spending tenths of thousands per month, looking down to "job" people etc... But when he came back, broke AF... window was CLOSED, he was fired from his (trading) job he had on the side... and never returned to profitable trading...

So the question is... What % (annual or absolute) return are you talking about within what DrawDown and within what timeframe? Now multiply this with AUM and you can answer yourself if you can survive on that... Because trader must be aware that it can all go FULL STOP in the NEXT trade, specially if he is trading with insane risk (for insane) return... So it can be stop of profitability (if larger AUM is in play) or the account is blow or on the road to there...

My "advice" from my observations... is you either get large enough AUM, risk low, per trade, select your trades, know when not to trade and do not chase the loses... Of course plan your trades and trade your plan... And keep it as simple as possible... Because in trading, less is more, at least in my book, from my heavy observations

Or... you start with small deposit (100USD or less), await for opportunity and ATTACK it until you get at least some base "FU position" or some buffer, because you do not know when this will stop and you will have to live from past profits...

Also, see that many adjust their (fixed costs) lifestyle to VARIABLE profits and as soon as profitability stops, buffer is depleting quickly, not to mention debt can increase even sooner...

So, to summarise.. Sure it is possible, and you have plenty of proofs... But you have to define return/DD, timeframe and AUM... Because many dream of making 100mio out of 100USD while risking NOTHING and getting EVERYTHING Or in practical terms.... TP200SL0, heavy leverage, 10USD deposit, 10mio profit is what is being looked for by most, in my experience anyway... Also some are looking for alternatives to bank deposits (well this option is now gone basically with rates slaughtered in EU, US at least), real estate return (if they have AUM anyway) or job... And this is where the fail starts, you can not compare "FIXed" income to one of the most dynamic professions there is.. you do not know if you will end up Billionaire or a Bump. Both paths are possible in this racket. Which is more likely you should already know, if you are serious about trading

Also check some threads, posts, seems there are many high earners here

A spread of two is optimistic, besides they make up the difference with slippage. Also taking out orders , you are talking about pending orders when opening 2 orders simultaneously , not market orders. Here you need to know what you are doing. Like you picked a breakout top on 2 candles, a reversal or continuance.

Remember though EA are post fact, if you strategy test something it will show you in hindsight what might have been. Strategy testing for 10 years would be completely different to a live account that was profitable for the same period. 10 years is also way to long, 2-3 months , this year in profit would be a better gauge. I say don't play all your cards, use an EA,their rates seem to be better. Their stops and limits , and KISS, I think Downbeggar or whatever's strategy worked for him. Hell maybe its all broker dependent

I spent many years tweaking this and that, trying to improve the win ratio, but in the end, your criteria make it that you barely find any set-ups in a day. You spend hour after hour at the screen, your discipline can not hold off the desire to want to trade, so you cheat a little. What is the point of developing such criteria if they don't occur often enough. You will likely miss a set-up when it comes along anyway, whilst you are occupying your time watching youtube clips or on social media etc

Dear RobertStarc

From Australia my advice stay clear of Pepperstone and anything to do with MetaTrader. They offer cTrader although still yet to make any real money with them. They have a tie up with TooolsTrades they have a trading signals setup( return may be better, I dont know -they use Metatrader). Made a better return with Go Markets whereby after one London opening in Septemberish '19 I made $1000 in 45 minutes on the DAX and then squandered it all. I have the distinct ability to influence the markets as whenever I trade the market moves immediately against me or definitely within 5 minutes, its uncanny crap. Yeah Leverage is not a good thing, I think 100 or 200 is more than enough , -100. There are brokers out there that Gouge on trades, spreads, slippage everything, fuck with your margin anything to get your capital.

My advice on trading Metatrader, is buy small dont' play all your cards, buy or sell at a Lng term Fibonacci level. So the recent high would have been good for indices for example. KISS will use an EA going forward yet to find an EA or indicator that works 100%. Use the margin you make trade. Perhaps open 2-3 orders after about 50 pips. Then things will go pear shaped , you will have kitty and the margin. You will have losing trades, so to keep your margin you SELL or close positions in a downtrend.

The "window" of opportunity you talk of seems like it would apply to indicators and such. If you use price action and things like that then Its just a matter of applying enough time reading charts to aquire the experience needed to eventually become succesfull. I think you right that you cant have doubling of account with 1 or two trades without eventually possibly blowing up an account. Its better to maybe to that in the beggining and take a chance at making your account bigger faster and then dropping down to the usual 0.5-3% per trade.

auricforecas
Can you make money from Trading , i cannot recall anyone showing me an account that is profitable . Implies long term sustainable living as you would find in a job . As a retail forex investor not hedge fund manager or whatever else. Hell Kaiser Sousay couldn't earn a living as a retail forex trader .

most of the writers make money from seminars and selling thier books , or work for someone else , stay on demo until a large total consistant wins Since you are already making money in Forex, is there anything you can do to improve? Some things you cannot do anything about, like lack of capital to trade large size. You need patience to let your account grow. Other things, like lack of opportunity, you may be able to improve by trading more instruments, or going down to lower time frame.

Of course you can make money from online trading but as well you can loose.
The main issue is how well you understand the market and how good you are with managing the risks,

Its way much easier to lose money when you luck the knowledge and experience.
I tried to both do the trading myself as well as having a market analyst to do it for me. I would say the biggest advantage of following him is that its not time consuming and i dont have to apply any types of analysis.

Trading can give you profits no doubt, but at the end, it all depends on how much skilled you are and what are your strategies. Many fail in this market just because they aren't well educated about it. So yes, earnings can vary from person to person.

I would say that some also lack BASIC BASICS... One of the top few I observed are...

1. Ability to let the ego aside! (big problem for some)... Meaning that it doesn't matter who was right/wrong, but it is important (if people are trading for money anyway) that money/profits are being made! It seems easy but many fail at this, day by day.
2. Risk:Reward ratio misunderstanding. Many "found" this Risk:Reward ratio and think they are wonderful risk managers by simply following this minimum Risk:Reward 1:1, or some 1:2 or even 1:4... WHILE also not stating the actual TP.. because Risk:Reward just can not be constant through all the TP levels.. since the lower the TP, the harder it is to be so precise.. for example at TP20 and wanted RR 1:4, one would have to be 5PIP precise... and where is room for spread? Also, some seem not to understand that trade/prices need room to develop... For example if one would get price prediction model that DOES work strongly, although with (much) delays at times... one should adapt the room or simply CUT out the profits? For example.. if you would know that TP20 would hit, but maybe not within whatever RR... would you skip/laugh it away or adapt the R.. Many fail at this... That is why we see rookies outperform many, until they learn the "golden rules" or after they meet the swan/loss and could not recover (financially or emotionally). There are many, quite scientific, articles about Risk:Reward ratio, win-rate etc... but seems not many bother... they just think that 3 "golden rules" alone would make them rich... and also expecting them to be constant; those are... TP20+, R:R 1:2+ and some golden technical indicators (not to mention that HF comps TRADE on them BEFORE brains could receive/process the info).

But those above are too hard for many traders to get, so please anyone that would like to argue, please pass... But if there is anyone that could do TP20+ (eurusd for example) with R:R 1:2+ or 1:4+, in a series!, please send me a message because I could tell you how you are wasting millions away with that aladdin lamp, if you are not a billionaire already.

Well, what can I say about this, of course, there are absolutely different situations, sometimes everything goes according to plan and I even see more profit than I could expect. Sometimes the situation acquires absolutely different parameters, for example, when there is some unforeseen surge in the market caused by news, in this case a certain drawdown is allowed, but it must be supported by a fixed allowable percentage and a backup plan of action, which will allow to correct the situation.I strongly believe that in this case the main thing is to take your time and let the market calm down to evaluate new levels and get a new point of reference. But if it were true, we would have been doing this for years if we had never seen a positive trend. Of course not, profit is one of the key goals for which we work in the market.

Yes off course you can make money by being a good trader who is having good analytical and fundamental skills to understand the forex signals.

At first, My trading was going not good, losing 50% from my capital, but after that day by day scenario was totally changing & now I'm stable & if I want then what ever market condition make money really not a big issue

So it comes from a position of strength, whereby a change in trend is calculated/determined from the chart. Trends are long term,and the key Forex saying buy low and sell high is very pertinent here.

Remember KISS , keep it simple surgeon- Fibonacci lines reversal and movements are key. You can determine where prices will go, not may go. Lastly......

Ashbrad, are you able to share more insights on your advice on pepperstone and MT?