Road behind....road ahead.

(Yes, I'm long winded. It's why I don't post often. Yes, I have a problem. I am seeking help. Cope, or don't read. )

So, about a year and a half ago, I passed... "OMG!! This is so easy! I can totally make $4000 a day EVERY day...even though I have a 3$ account!!11 I will be rich in NO TIME !!eleven!! Everyone who tells me better is jealous and dumb!" ville. It was an alright place, good schools, nice neighborhoods. Everyone seemed fake though, plastic.

Shortly thereafter I discovered "OH NO!! I just blew $50,000 of someone elses money and am now totally ruined and my life is over" town.Not a nice place. Saw a lot of ruined traders there. Learned Forex will eat you in no time flat, that the market will take your life, your family, and everything you have. Realized that it didn't care and I wasn't owed anything by anyone. Hung out and felt sorry for myself for a while. Discovered booze. Then Jim and Fiji sent me a post card, and I realized I wasn't done.

(Thanks guys. You'll never know what I owe you.)

Then I did what a lot don't, and kept walking. Soon I found the beautiful city of "Study your ass off and have a little respect for the market."

It seemed like a good place, full of folks who wanted to be helpful and had some knowledge. Soon, I moved to the district of Money Management, and bought a nice place on "Use stop losses you retarded dumbass" lane. I've been here a while and have made more than I've lost.

I tell you all that to tell you this.

What got me over the hump of Money management and paying attention was dividing my trading times into 2% increments. I would aim to gain two percent, and when I did, I would get out. Maybe it seemed the market would continue...maybe it wouldn't. If I had reached that goal, I would get out. If things went backwards, same deal. 2% was the limit.
This helped me with my greed tremendously, and my fear as well. I learned that the market is always the market, but that I was the thing that kept changing....being afraid when I was losing, greedy when I was winning. This simple rule saved my trading, my family, and my future by removing most of the uncertainty. Since I made good calls more often than bad, the numbers worked. I watched Jim's buffalo action, used a trolls rainbow, and listened to a wizard whisper in the wind.


But now..a problem.

It is becoming easier and easier to hit my 2% goal. so much so that I am afraid I might be overtrading...ok, I know I am. I am using a live account, so I know that I know I'm not being falsely inflated by demo hopes, but things are...awry. I am racking up wins, but my choices get worse as the day wears on. I have no rules for when to know I have had enough. I end each week ahead, but usually through stress and strain. Big winning streak...big losing streak...come out on target...but exhausted.

Every week for three months.

So finally, now that you have aged while reading, my question.

Think of your account. IMAGINE you had a goal of 2% growth. How long would it take you, as a successful trader, to make that happen, usually? How many pips would it take you?

I think if I hear a few answers, especially from folks who I know have made it, it will help me weed out the noise of

"I MADE $10000 THIS WEEK AND EXPECT IT TO CONTINUE , ALWAYS"

and the opposite of

" YOU CANNOT MAKE that % in a month!! If you did, Hedge fund ninjas would appear from the shadows and whisk you away, never to be heard from again!!"

I know that answer is between extremes.

What's yours?

(PM me if you can help, but dont want to be public. )

Thank you for giving up your youth reading my post. Yes, that is grim death approaching, and you wasted your life on me. Good job. :

I enjoyed the long post. Every trade I do is risking 1%, and depending upon my setup i usually expect between 1.5 - 3% return. so 2% is usually reached in one trade. But the key is consistency, which is starting to develop nicely for me.

that would depend on your margin used........ to get 2% could take as little as 2-4 pips or as many as several hundred pips

...and thats what I mean. I want to find out if most people would be trying to do it in one pip or 100. I KNOW what I'm doing, I'm trying to compare to what people who are wiser than I usually do in their own system.

I know systems are different....just average hunting.

But I did exactly the same as you.

You, like me (at the moment!), have re-assessed and found a method that's re-building your account. Two weeks ago I wasn't even sure I'd stay trading.

Before it all went wrong, I traded multiple pairs with multiple positions on those pairs. Sometimes I had trades running on virtually every pair on my broker's list. It was good while it lasted until the sub-prime panic. No stops and panic sealed my fate.

So now I only trade one pair a day (maybe two), and sometimes add in positions. This week I added 9% to the account.

So my discipline is to NOT going looking for other trades while I'm in a trade. I can't tell you how many pips I've missed as I go back and see how my method would have panned out across the charts. But that's my rule, and whether this is the same problem you have, or not, then once all the replies are in, and you've picked a cure. Apply it rigidly.

The number of pips largely depends on your style of trading. If you are a scalping, it may be much fewer pips than if you trade daily and weekly charts. Also, it will depend on the currency pair.. You may wish to risk more pips on GBP/JPY as you perhaps would on eur/gbp as price typically moves in a much larger pip range.

Peters....
It is so ironic that both of you posted together...

For I while, I was confusing you two, I think, your names being similar. ONE of you, I thought, posted somewhere that his goal was 2% a month. Since I am aiming at 2% much, much sooner than that, it is what started me thinking that maybe I was drastically overtrading. Peter FM, however, adding 9% in a week, though, helps me feel better.

Peter FM:

I understand completely. It was about three weeks ago that decided that for now, only a few pairs were for me. I used to trade anything with a set-up, even if i understood nothing about their economy or what moved them. I would make 2 dozen tiny trades and then be mad I couldn't watch them all. Hearing you say this has been a deal for you too makes me feel better. I might enter the same pair multiple times, but I never look at other pairs anymore, until I'm out.

Peter M
I want to be a long term trend trader...I really do. I just cant stand the wait. Maybe I need to learn to be more patient, but I find that scalping with Linux troll's rainbow is usually what does it for me. Except....he does it once a day, big, and quits. I do it five or six sometimes. My job has me in front of a computer all day....10-12 hour days..and finding that time is pretty simple. Today, I USUALLY stick with Euro/ usd and Usd/jpy.... because, as I said above, I get them.



Thnaks to you both! !

Here is one way to keep an eye on multiple pairs....
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/7...enshot1rm5.png

you really don't need a single chart that fills the page, just one big enough to show which side of the MA the price is on.

I have a cataract in one eye (and the other's not too bright) and as I like to look for long-term SR points, and multiple Fibs, I need the charts zoomed out most of the time.
With that many charts on screen, I really can't spot my decision points, so I'll swap between the (large) charts until I see potential trades which I'll monitor more closely.
Thanks anyway, I have tried that idea in the past, just doesn't work for me.

I get blurry also, I have them up so I can get a quick look then enlarge the chart I need to look it more closly.

yes.. i understand what you mean.. trend trading requires a lot of patience and discipline.. It can take a long time to acquire this... its much better to stay trading demo accounts until you are confident you can stay out until a good setup arises.