He went on to say that this type of client would hound him endlessly about their returns, call him with tips from their barber, and demand more of his time than they deserved. All this caused undue stress for both parties.
Hello FXJ--I knew you'd pounce on this one. Our first discussion was very similar.
The original question is a little broad. "How much money does one need to trade the forex markets?".
To trade the forex markets for:
....1) A sole source of income?
....2) To build an account over time?
....3) As part of a trading portfolio?
....4) As a learning experience?
Beartrade says he expects clients to be able to pony up 25k, which is probably a good figure as applied to his circumstance. 15 years ago I tried to open a managed investment account with Fidelity as part of my total plan (I'd already been investing with them for a decade). They refused my 20k, requiring 25k back then, and unless you had 100k they would only offer limited services. So I believe Beartrade's figure is in line, if not conservative. I'm guessing he won't accept even 25k if it's the client's total liquid assets. I'm also guessing he doesn't want to:
....a) be continuously fielding calls over a 1k account
....b) do a ton of clerical work over a 1k account
....c) have to go through the process of convincing someone what the reasonable expectation would be on a tiny managed account with conservative leverage.
For a sole source of income:
Personally I wouldn't want to trade 25k or even 50k for a living, unless I had other liquid assets or a working spouse with a very good job.. If you're experiencing a few bad months and tapping your account for everyday living expenses your account will dwindle quickly and cause all kinds of psychological havoc. If I chose to do this as my sole income, Id prefer to have at least 100k set aside exclusively for Forex. And that wouldn't have me entirely in my comfort zone. I like to live well--no Ramen noodles for me.
On the other hand for learning or building an account I think any amount is okay, as long as the account lets you size your positions using proper MM. If you are consistantly gaining, keep adding cash. Even if you have to work a few extra hours at your day job each week, or drive a less expensive car for a while, or whatever it takes to fund your account. I've been self-employed for almost 30 years and start-up money always had to come from somewhere; It never fell from the sky.
As part of an overall portfolio, maybe 10k in a mini-account, after you've had success with a tiny account and proven your method.
As far as mini and nano account and daily wages:
Why can't you trade a 50k mini-account? You Money Management rules might tell you that your ideal position size is 37 mini-lots. Some standard accounts wouldn't allow you to buy fractional lots (3.7 standard lots). On a standard account you would have to buy or sell 4 lots, thereby breaking your own rules, or you could buy or sell 3 lots and not be using your account size to it's fullest potential.
Happy New Year, Jon
Bill
) with about $1000usd in an account. Using mini's in your way is fine, why??? The capital is there! 
obviously the optimal situation is that you would trade with your own capital. who the hell wants to deal with investors??: most of us are in this game because we love to trade and DONT like dealing with people LOL.
but the catch is that you need a huge pile of money to make your returns a significant amount of money, so most of us unfortunately need investors to "get rich" (at least at first). so if zero investors is optimal, the next best thing is having one single investor, right? well, not exactly. if you rely on one investor he could pull the rug out from under your operation. as a general guideline, i say shoot to have as few investors as possible while keeping each investor to less than 25% of the total capital. under this model you would need AT LEAST 4 investors, and 6 or 7 would be more realistic since one investor would probably be significantly bigger than the others.
