My Journey to a $1,000,000

The journey is most definately not over. But after some disappointing trades and a string of losses I have re-developed my system to a simpler approach with higher leverege, and am going to spend much less time posting trade results. Posting trade results immediately after on this forum was taking me out of focus and causing me to miss other opportunities. Weekly wrap-ups are now the only thing I will be posting for the time being.

Couple months ago , I find a result of a back tested EA.
It shows that, with $500 you can get $1 m in 4 months.
But it's only in the demo data, in the real after future test
in mini I lost $130.

Since then I have strong wish to make a trading system
EA or else, that can be a money machine.

It's good to know someone else have a same vision
($1m).

so what I want to say is take a rest and DON'T GIVE UP


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Sorry about bad English, any body from Indonesia ?

if the back test win, it is not because it always win. but because it win in the end of the back test. or setup few account with a bit diffrent E.A. if one can win $1M, that will cover the rest .

Hello once again HowManyPips, how is it going?
Right now I'm sitting in my office and thinking why such a great thread is sinking into the bottom of the forum? What has happened? :surprised

Right when you started this thread you've already had a bunch of friendly FF members backing you up and wishing all the best success and profitable trades (including me, refer to post #3) and now it doesn't look like the journey is running smoothly.

I am forcefully bringing this thread to the top to let you know that YOU CAN DO EVERYTHING IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.

Let me guess, I bet the initial risk capital you had is now swept away? My apologies if I am wrong but that is the sad picture i see at the moment.

Even at a times like these you should NOT stop. The first question a wannabe-trader must ask to himself/herself is "Do I really want to trade?"

One honest answer can direct you to your success. And if your answer to that question is YES, you must go back here and prove to yourself and others as well, that you can master the game and become profitable.

I'm all for helping others as much as I can, and I believe all the members in FF feel the same way too.

I don't care if you trade demo or live, 1 lot or 1000 lots, intraday or once per year, as long as we can learn from each other, we will all become profitable. SENSE OF COMMUNITY BABY!

Over&Out,

Dex

I have not read the whole topic but that is a point that everyone should stop thinking... It is not OK to lose !!!

You must start with the thinking that at least you should be able to keep those 300$...

I'm about to start with a 2500 account and i dont plan to lose this money

That's what the psychology of trading is all about

It has been agreed many times by many professional traders that ATTITUDE plays big role in the game, and that is absolutely correct.

Lack of attitude is what makes trading very, VERY hard.

Still,
"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything."
(Bishop W. Magee, 1821-1891)

Alright, after some introspection and self-analysis I've come to the conclusion that it would be more beneficial to myself and the community to just admit I blew the tiny $300 account on IBFX (200:1 leverage) in a little over 4 weeks by over-leveraging myself and trading GBP/JPY. I will now go into further depth as to my trading past, present and future.

I first began trading around Feb 2006 when I came to conclusion it was better to trade and control my money myself than to lose it in HYIP ponzi schemes (which I was lucky enough to actually make money in for a short while.) My father traded currencies and was pretty much a pro. I don't really know when he first got into it but I imagine he had probably been doing for at least 5 years and was involved in financial markets since his early college days. My brother had introduced me to foreign exchange a few years prior but it all looked like a foreign language to me at the time. After my brother blew his first account he had pretty much quit trading, I had gotten fed up with losing money to pyramid and HYIP schemes and decided to take a stab at it myself. Beginners luck took over and I was hooked ever since. After seeing me blow at least $2000 over the course of a year my dad had pretty much gotten fed up and told me to demo for a while until I could prove to have something profitable. But I was a stubborn fool and kept saying it was my money and I could do with it as I please. So the losing has continued up until now where I've switched back to Oanda and their 50:1 leverage and made back most of what I lost at IBFX. I don't have the actual numbers currently but I'd say I'm still somewhere in the range of $2000 in the hole trading currencies over the course of 16 months. And to be completely honest this is not counting gambling losses, or losses occured due to HYIP schemes. If you count those it could be in excess of $5000. So I will make an admission openly, that I am somewhat of a gambler, a high risk taker, and at times I will lose big, but also on the other end of the spectrum; at times I will win big. Nowadays, it all depends on the type of signal I get for a trade. Alright that being said let's get back into the present situation.

The past two months - I had been doing so well ever since joining and chatting with the group of traders over at FX Insights that I had pretty much taken their signal for granted and considered it money in the bank. So you all know where this led to AGAIN, over leveraging and a terrible drawdown to almost another margin call. Luckily though I had been withdrawing on a regular basis from the account so it wasn't too big a deal but I will say that if there is one thing I can master -MONEY MANAGEMENT & position sizing- I will be a fairly competent trader in the long run.

Now, instead of being all disappointed in myself or feeling like I let other traders down, I am just going to take a step out of my comfort zone and post on here as often as time permits. I will try to be a transparent as possible, and if I over leverage again, then so be it; I will work on and practice good MM technique but if I get a signal (specifically price action signals on gold) I'm going to load the boat - I saw something, no apologies.

Let's get into the stats. My realized profit and loss margin at Oanda as of this day is -$3824 with at least half of that (app. -$2000 being my brother's short trading stint, who knows maybe I can get him to come back to it one of these days...) One of my goals is to reduce that amount to close to zero by the end of the year and try to make the account profitable. But right now my main priority is just to make a few extra bucks a week and beat what my checking account is offering at less than 2% a month interest. A weekly goal of 7% will be in check. Money will be deposited and withdrawn regularly but realized profit and loss will be accurately reflected. On the year to date, since I have switched back to Oanda my realized profit and loss is +$277 with a 103% ROI over the past 6 weeks. If you factor in the $300 I lost at IBFX, I'm at -$23 on the year. Not too shabby. At this point I guess the title of this thread is sort of a mis-nomer and should more aptly be called "My Journey to $1,000,000, but first I gotta pay the bills" I will do my best to make this a sincere effort at my own personal growth and maybe somewhere along the way this will help other traders see they are not alone and people here are willing to help. The best advice I can give is to just follow along with the best until you get the hang of it, but always take advice with a pinch of salt and make your own best judgements. Always be aware of the fundamentals. Find a one or two blackbox systems that generate a signal and don't question it. They should work well, not generate too much of a drawdown and have at least a 1:1 RRR. One of the greatest things to learn about the market is that you will never catch all the pips and the markets moves 24/6 hundreds of pips, in and out, each and every day, all you have to do is catch some of them. Alright, I think I'm done preaching my advice, we'll see where this goes 6 months from now - it could be the house of pleasure or could be the house of pain, I'm pretty optimistic though at this point.

Here's my new layout of what I will be focusing most of my energies on.

Currencies -
(not going to play any of the volatile crosses anymore)
EUR/USD
USD/CHF
XAU/USD
(and possibly a few of the others but only if I see very specific criteria)

Systems I will be using -
Price Action (for gold mainly, 3-4hr & daily)
Easy Day (This is a fairly well-written system I bought off ebay)
Trend Manager (Free system you can download)
FX Insights Signals (Free buy signals for EUR/USD)
(MISC ITEMS - Monday set-ups, FIBS, TRENDLINES, STOCHASTICS)

Points of Interest -
Weekly goal of at least 7%
Discipline myself to smaller lot sizes
No suffering through big drawdowns
Pay the bills first, get rich later

Alright, I will reconvene posting to this thread on Monday, and some charts occasionally so others can see what I'm seeing. I'm looking forward to hearing other's interpretations of some of my trades and many more profitable weeks and years ahead.

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you learned something there.

Bluefish

heres the facts:


Bruce Kovner (billionaire) 6th highest paid hedge fund manager in the world in 2006 - spent a large portion of his life as a cab driver, funded his first account with his mastercard.

Carl Icahn (billionaire) - 1oth highest paid hedge fund manager in world in 2006 - dropped out before graduation, the degree was not finance related.

George Soros (billionaire) - 4th highest paid hedge fund manager in world in 2006 - did not want to be trader, wanted to a writer

Kenneth C. Griffin (billionaire) - 2nd highest paid hedge fund manager in 2006 - While at Harvard started two funds from his dorm room, and in between classes he would make trades - became a billionaire at 35

James Harris Simons (billionaire) - the worlds highest paid hedge fund manager in 2006 - graduated with a degree in mathematics - first began trading at the age of 40 - "It's startling to see such a highly successful mathematician achieve success in another field" ( quote from Edward Witten, professor at IASP, N.J.)

the notion that you "cant do it" is laughable, human beings are the most complicated, smartest, efficient

HowManyPips,

It's good to have you back
Looking forward to reading your upcoming posts!

Is that a realistic goal? It seems very high to me!

I don't mean to be negative - I am a firm believer that you should NEVER let anyone tell you that you cannot do something it's just I don't know how sustainable this would be over the long run...

Sounds like your April went a lot like my March. I did a lot of the same things, just a few weeks ahead of you. When I saw you post the solution which included "higher leverage" I winced.

My $300 account is at $128 now. For April I broke even, which was a huge breakthrough. Once I'm consistently profitable, I'll ease more money into the account a couple thousand at a time. I have to do it that way to see if I choke when the stakes go up. The plan is to trade the same with more money.

It is realistic in a sense that my account size is so small right now that I've actually come to a point where I don't mind the higher risk involved. Making $21 or losing $21 in a week wouldn't be that big of a deal to me either way. As the account grows I imagine I will be using proportionally less margin to further decrease my risk, but for now I'm OK using a large percentage of it.

Without being pedantic, I would say there is an important difference between:

a) "not minding" about the higher risk, which in my opinion is one of the single biggest reasons for failure among traders and

b) not having an opportunity to take less risk because your account is so small.

Depending on what category you fall into then we may have similar motives. I have blown two £1k accounts since leaving work to trade full time and am trading the remnants of the last one which was left with just £84.

I am aiming at making 5% on this per week and since I have begun being patient and waiting for good setups, I have achieved well above this for the last five weeks.

But my constant aim is to lower the risk it takes to achieve this regular rate of return.

for anybody who would care to check out my detailed money managemetn plan to reach a million dollars...please check out the attached link of my bat trades from team aphid. the last post posted today has a detailed plan of how to get there.

Interesting strategy Zalak. It looks like you manage your risk very well. I hope you accomplish your goals and I will keep an eye on your thread in the future.

I have found trading the news to be the most profitable system, at least for myself. March 10th I started with a $3000.00 account and currently my account is at $10,640.00. I did not make the $7,640.00 profits in few trades, rather anywhere from 2-5 trades per week. My total drawdown has been under $500.00 since the account opened March 10th.

So I do believe your goal of $1,000,000.00 is attainable, you must find a constant winning style without much drawdown to get there but I suppose thats a given. Good luck.

Being brutally honest is a VERY tough first step. The hardest thing I've ever had to face in my trading wasn't blowing the accounts I've blown... it was posting a message here on FF admitting that where everyone else was winning... I was losing.

The support here is intense and as long as you keep your passion, stay humble and learn and ALWAYS keep that brutally honesty (with yourself and others) you'll make it.

I will leave you with one other small piece of advice... TRADE IN THE PRESENT.

If you find yourself in a string of wins it's VERY easy to start projecting into the future and thinking about all the millions you'll have "soon." Then you start trading from that "future mindset" and it's VERY, VERY easy to allow yourself to over leverage ("Who cares if I blow a $300 mini-account now? I'll be a millionaire!")

That was a lesson that took me almost 2 years to really learn... and I'm still not sure if I really have learned it.

Best of luck and happy trading,

I have to disagree with you here. even though I have dreams of making millions, BLOWING AN ACCOUNT IS THE FIRST SIGN THAT YOU ARE NOT THERE. BLWOING AN ACCOUNT IS NOT A POSSIBILITY ACCORDING TO MY STANDARDS, If i blow an account. I am done as a trader. Blowing an account must be a statistical impossibility. how? if you have a sysetm thats 60% accurate and 1-1 reward to risk ratio.....50% drawdown is very hard if u risk only 2%. so that way.....if u do get to 50% drawdown....you know the system is not working for sure and quit using that strategy. I am not married to the system. well actually I am married to my system....untill the unacceptable drawdown occurs. e.g. one of the systems i use....i have set my unacceptable drawdown to 50% of the allocated amount. so if that drawdown occurs...I divorce that system and move on......of course divorces are always ugly but you got to do what to got to do

I kind of agree with you here but you also need some solid rules on how not to blow your account. even though I have dreams of making millions, BLOWING AN ACCOUNT IS THE FIRST SIGN THAT YOU ARE NOT THERE. BLWOING AN ACCOUNT IS NOT A POSSIBILITY ACCORDING TO MY STANDARDS, If i blow an account. I am done as a trader. Blowing an account must be a statistical impossibility. how? if you have a sysetm thats 60% accurate and 1-1 reward to risk ratio.....50% drawdown is very hard if u risk only 2%. so that way.....if u do get to 50% drawdown....you know the system is not working for sure and quit using that strategy. I am not married to the system. well actually I am married to my system....untill the unacceptable drawdown occurs. e.g. one of the systems i use....i have set my unacceptable drawdown to 50% of the allocated amount. so if that drawdown occurs...I divorce that system and move on......of course divorces are always ugly but you got to do what you got to do