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4% A Day Forever

  • #601
  • Nov 24, 2009 7:22pm Nov 24, 2009 7:22pm
Quoting kimd
I did the same thing as you. I moved a bit of cash to a new account and was bound to learn how to scalp. It's always a work in progress of course. I like the idea of getting 4-7 pips in maybe 6 quick trades a day. As time goes on maybe I'll do more.

What type of profit do you like per trade? I am interested to know your strategies as well.
Interesting, thank you. I currently am scalping with a 1 pip=0.2% of account value approach. So, a 5-pip winner will get me a 1% account increase. I commonly get at least 2 and up to four of those in the 1-hr Frankfurt session alone, unless its a dull one.

That is as aggressive as I go and I trade that way when I feel like I am on my game & have the highest level of focus & discipline. Otherwise I back off of that.

If I am swing trading, which I don't do nearly as well, I am trading at most half of that & typically even less. I persist in trying to swing trade because there are times when I just don't have the energy or frame of mind to do the intensive screen time needed to scalp. Its cool to pick a direction and look for a 50- or 100-pip winner with comparable sl's. This requires a different kind of discipline, though, and I have a lot to learn there - I almost always will cut in and close those trades b4 they hit the profit or loss targets. That is kinda like "scalper mind" interfering with "swing trader mind", I think. I know it is possible for a person to be effective at all forms of trading, but I also think she will probably excel at one more than others. Since I am still basically a newbie, I am trying lots of different things. Right now I am in a position trade on E/U that has been running since the beginning of the week short E/U from 1.4970 - I really thought that one would pay 150 pips this week, but no such luck...yet. So I'm short E/U now with three trades from average ~.4950. These are small trades and I still have plenty of margin to scalp at full size if I want to - the only problem is, I can't hedge in the OandA account so I am locked into short scalps. I need a separate (sub) account for contrary direction & will set that up soon, too...also a separate account for swing/position trading....

I do know this: if I can develop the discipline to just sit down at the computer for a couple hours a day and scalp in the ways I have shown I can in this thread, I can make a living doing just that. I am getting closer to that goal. I figure I need just a $10k account but $20k will be better, then 20 pips a day at 1 pip = 0.2% account value would do the trick at $800/day gross. Even half of that would be just fine.

There are several traders I have met here on FF who decided to settle for "less is more" and 20 pips a day is a theme that I have heard more than once. They don't post that much, probably enjoying a relaxed lifestyle that a 2-hr/day job affords.

Anyway, those are some of my realities and some of my fantasies, too.

Happy Trades!
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #602
  • Edited 7:46pm Nov 24, 2009 7:35pm | Edited 7:46pm
Quoting X.Oden
Hi Fool,

I know you've been scalping for a good while now, have you managed to double your account already?
Hi X.Oden,

Yes I have doubled, tripled the account, then cut it in half lol. Done that scary dance several times, in fact. I really would like to be able to produce a smooth equity curve that just rises steadily for months and years at a time. The harder things for me to learn have been related to "how not to lose money." And I'm still learning but I am slowly getting wiser.

Let's see, it has been 3-4 weeks since my last jag down (Oct. 30) and I am up 45% since then (and that includes a break-even week last week)...
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #603
  • Nov 25, 2009 3:02am Nov 25, 2009 3:02am
1 - 2 Hour tops, 30 - 50 pips per day at $10 - $20 per pip would suite me perfectly, actually I'd be making what I make currently per month in 2 days

It's just 30 - 50 pips at the current size of my account is barely worth making.
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #604
  • Nov 25, 2009 5:24am Nov 25, 2009 5:24am
Quoting Turveyd
1 - 2 Hour tops, 30 - 50 pips per day at $10 - $20 per pip would suite me perfectly, actually I'd be making what I make currently per month in 2 days

It's just 30 - 50 pips at the current size of my account is barely worth making.
Yup. Its a lot of work. If you can't manage to trade at least around $2/pip then it can wear you down...of course, that number is different for everyone, but its always there...

Looking back on this thread, I was trading straight mini-lots at first, went up to $30-$40/pip after a few months. I flew too close to the sun. Crashed & burned.
Now, I'm just going to stick to scaling up the trade size as a constant(maximum) account %/pip. Get to a max account value of $10-$20k and trade from there at $20-$40/pip max and skim off any profits beyond that base on a weekly basis.

Keep on pluggin buddy!
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #605
  • Nov 25, 2009 5:53am Nov 25, 2009 5:53am
Quoting The Fool
Yup. Its a lot of work. If you can't manage to trade at least around $2/pip then it can wear you down...of course, that number is different for everyone, but its always there...

Looking back on this thread, I was trading straight mini-lots at first, went up to $30-$40/pip after a few months. I flew too close to the sun. Crashed & burned.
Now, I'm just going to stick to scaling up the trade size as a constant(maximum) account %/pip. Get to...

The 10K - 20K ( £10K GBP ) then skim monthly is my plan, I plan to trade $20 per pip at that level to, there is just no need to have 100K in a account because it would just allow for really stupid 50K losing days.

I can trade $2 per pip safe enough and do, I need to get back on plan and starting making my 30-50pips per day then scale up the lots and accept its going to take a few months at that rate before it starts really paying, got to start somewhere hey.

Just called a entry, which ran 50pips but I wussed so permission to kick myself

$30 - $40, NICE if you can take the pressure and remain profitable at that for sure!!
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #606
  • Nov 26, 2009 2:44am Nov 26, 2009 2:44am
  • #607
  • Nov 26, 2009 4:03am Nov 26, 2009 4:03am
hey fool, been following this for a while. nice to see you doing well. Im also on a path similar to yours, as far as i can tell the trading is easy, its all about mental state and discipline that can screw u up. I think the only way to gain this is to just keep going at is with hard headed persistence. i look forward to seeing your future success.
  • #608
  • Nov 26, 2009 4:29am Nov 26, 2009 4:29am
Quoting AceOfTrades
hey fool, been following this for a while. nice to see you doing well. Im also on a path similar to yours, as far as i can tell the trading is easy, its all about mental state and discipline that can screw u up. I think the only way to gain this is to just keep going at is with hard headed persistence. i look forward to seeing your future success.
Hi Ace.

I absolutely agree with you. If you fall off that horse you gotta get right back on. Pay attention to what works & keep that; get rid of the habits and approaches that do you harm or that don't work. Sounds easy but its not really, but with time and persistence its doable. Its kinda like anything, I guess - riding a bicycle, learning a language, whatever - when you begin you make all kinds of mistakes. But after enough regular practice, it gets easier. The complicating factor is solvency: can you keep enough capital to stay in the game? That's the steepest part of the learning curve where most probably fall off.

But hey, I'm still here. Account still growing.

Best of luck to you.
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #609
  • Nov 26, 2009 5:25am Nov 26, 2009 5:25am
Trading is REALLY EASY, NEVER Forget that its when you make trading hard for yourself it becomes a huge losing game.


Don't over complicate it!!
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #610
  • Nov 26, 2009 5:27am Nov 26, 2009 5:27am
Quoting Turveyd
Trading is REALLY EASY, NEVER Forget that its when you make trading hard for yourself it becomes a huge losing game.


Don't over complicate it!!
Serious words of wisdom!
  • #611
  • Nov 26, 2009 7:25pm Nov 26, 2009 7:25pm
You are so right about this one....I have to keep reminding myself on certain days when I'm about to give up.


Quoting Turveyd
Trading is REALLY EASY, NEVER Forget that its

when you make trading hard for yourself it becomes a huge losing game.


Don't over complicate it!!
In Charts We Trust!
  • #612
  • Nov 26, 2009 8:13pm Nov 26, 2009 8:13pm
Hello traders & Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I got on the right side of the market this AM when I saw the Dubai news and shorted E/U from 1.51 down to .4940, scalping all the way for about 150 pips. This has been a good week & I am going to be able to split my accounts as I have discussed before. How do any of you deal with this?

My idea is to have a scalping account that gets used for very low tf scalping only, aggressive trading with a 0.2%-of-account value/pip &
1%-of-account/trade risk max. I need to focus on this method because I have proven to myself that I am consistently profitable with it & it will be best, I think, to trade that way in a dedicated account where no longer-term trading efforts can interfere.

Then I do want to do some longer term trading, swing trading on daily-weekly tf. I will do this from two sub-accounts - one for long trades and one for short trades - this is the only way I can hedge in the OandA account.

I already have an account dedicated for profit withdrawals - this account is going to start getting used more often. To tell you the truth, I didn't really want to take much profit out of this enterprise in 2009, for tax-related purposes, and, of course, my numerous goofs rendered that stance moot anyway. But 2010 needs to be a different story and I am going to focus on generating trading revenue. I want to grow these trading accounts to a stable base - around $10-$20k each, and make weekly or monthly withdrawals of profits above the base levels.

I am going to make another account for emergency funds. This will be a "rainy day" account that gets some small % of profit contribution up to a $3-5k level and it will exist solely to help save my ass if some shit hits the fan and I am up against an account blow-out or even a margin call.

That's about all I want to do at OandA. I am going to go back to trading futures as my capitalization allows. I am also scouting for a different spot forex broker - an ECN, perhaps Dukascopy. After spending all these months scalping on the OandA M1 and faster tf's, I can see that they have some algorithmic defenses built into the platform that actually work against the very short tf scalper. Fine, call me paranoid if you like, but I am convinced. I don't much like that 0.9-pip bottom limit for E/U spread, either.

Hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving & Happy Trades!
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #613
  • Nov 26, 2009 10:04pm Nov 26, 2009 10:04pm
Quoting The Fool
...I can see that they have some algorithmic defenses built into the platform that actually work against the very short tf scalper. Fine, call me paranoid if you like, but I am convinced. ...
hello. can you explain what you experianced with them? i'm askin this coz i had some problems also when i jumped in and out fast on 5 sec charts... taking brake outs and staying in a trade only seconds.... ofcourse it's all on live acc.
i trade different right now and all the problems are gone.
  • #614
  • Nov 26, 2009 10:45pm Nov 26, 2009 10:45pm
Quoting ForexSV
hello. can you explain what you experianced with them? i'm askin this coz i had some problems also when i jumped in and out fast on 5 sec charts... taking brake outs and staying in a trade only seconds.... ofcourse it's all on live acc.
i trade different right now and all the problems are gone.
(Most of my trades are not seconds-long, but, rather, more like minutes-long, or longer, but I'm sure I have an occasional scalp that takes less than a minute, too.)

The worst of it has been that, at times, I can not manually execute a trade. I will be in the pull-down menu and clicking on the submit button to close a winner (or a loser) and nothing will happen. Sometimes I might click "submit" 10-20 times and then it will go thru, others it just won't go thru at all. This does not always occur, of course, but enough to tick me off.

The other thing that is really suspicious is that anytime I enter a "market buy" order, the price action will stop at my order. I might have an instantaneous "fill", bu the PA always pauses. I am trading in volatility and trying to catch momentum in the PA, so this is aggravating, too. I assume that this is the platform program pausing for a few seconds to match my (long, for instance) order to another (short, for instance) order of similar or exact same size, or to pool it optimally with a set of other (long, for instance) orders. This happens on every single trade and is very noticeable on the 10s charts.

I understand that Oanda is a market maker and I know what that means: they are not exposing my little 1/2-lot trade to the larger $3-trillion-a-day forex market - of course, that's all bullshit - they are balancing their order books internally and exposing themselves to that larger market. I accept that. But what seems clear is that it is well within their power to manipulate and render ineffectual the trading platform and your trade if it suits them. And I wonder if it will suit them when I begin to take steady profits out of my accounts? Not sure, I probably won't stick around to find out.

So, what did you experience?
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #615
  • Nov 27, 2009 6:08am Nov 27, 2009 6:08am
Good am,do you or can you open another account to see if it is the market or platform that is hanging the trade up when "YOU" want to trade not when they allow you to ??? I use forex.com(I am not promoting them)and my orders are filled with no hesitation all the time,sucessful trading to you !!!
  • #616
  • Nov 27, 2009 6:13am Nov 27, 2009 6:13am
Quoting monikroc
Good am,do you or can you open another account to see if it is the market or platform that is hanging the trade up when "YOU" want to trade not when they allow you to ??? I use forex.com(I am not promoting them)and my orders are filled with no hesitation all the time,sucessful trading to you !!!
The platform is clearly the issue, and the same problems occur across a half dozen workstations that I use.
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #617
  • Nov 27, 2009 10:33am Nov 27, 2009 10:33am
True ECN's require 100K or more Minimum. Plus ECN platforms bite the big one....



Quoting The Fool
Hello traders & Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I got on the right side of the market this AM when I saw the Dubai news and shorted E/U from 1.51 down to .4940, scalping all the way for about 150 pips. This has been a good week & I am going to be able to split my accounts as I have discussed before. How do any of you deal with this?

My idea is to have a scalping account that gets used for very low tf scalping only, aggressive trading with a 0.2%-of-account value/pip &
1%-of-account/trade risk max. I need to focus on this method because I have proven...
In Charts We Trust!
  • #618
  • Dec 4, 2009 12:25am Dec 4, 2009 12:25am
Hello peeps,

I hope everyone has been trading well & making $$$.

I have been taking some time away from trading lately, doing dayjob work, & only checking in typically at the FO/LO or Tokyo open to do some scalping. I split up my main OandA account and added a little to the new swingtrade subaccounts & that took longer than it should've but still not too bad. I am demo-trading some long term strategies, including hedging in opposing accounts, and that takes time, so those live subaccounts might sit idle for awhile...

Have been scalping gold (XAU) and the jury is out on that. Typically trying to shoot for 100 pips gain against a 25 pip sl (25 pip sl + 35 pip spread = 60 pip) and doing that on the 10s/M1 charts. Lots of opportunities, but I am just breaking even there so far. It's fun to regularly hit those 100-pippers and often that can take as long as 5 seconds, but strings of stop-losses wipe out the winners. Some of the 100-pip winners went 250 pips in less than a minute but I have not been fast enough to move the sl up to BE+ and catch a runner yet. Mostly playing $0.25/pip and occasionally $0.50/pip. Fun, but XAU may just be really too unpredictable on the short tf's....

Honestly, it feels good to get away from trading. It's nice to grab a solid 8-hour chunk of sleep every night, although after months of habit I typically wake up around the NY open anyway - about 5AM my time. I may be hooked.

I have one dayjob project to finish and then I will be out of work in January/February. Civil Engineering is a good-time gig and when the real estate markets are hot the small shop CE's like me do well. And when the RE markets are dead then you can go for months without getting a phone call. So, if you've got a job, be thankful for that steady paycheck.

It's been a long time since I had a regular job (15 years) but if things don't pick up, it might come to that. What a bother. Still, I'd hate to know I had to live off the earnings from a little $10k forex trading account. I know it can be done, I just have not really convinced myself that I could do it - still looking for that smooth equity curve.
"If The Fool persists in his Folly he will become wise." - William Blake
  • #619
  • Dec 4, 2009 5:29am Dec 4, 2009 5:29am
Quoting The Fool
Hello peeps,

I hope everyone has been trading well & making $$$.

I have been taking some time away from trading lately, doing dayjob work, & only checking in typically at the FO/LO or Tokyo open to do some scalping. I split up my main OandA account and added a little to the new swingtrade subaccounts & that took longer than it should've but still not too bad. I am demo-trading some long term strategies, including hedging in opposing accounts, and that takes time, so those live subaccounts might sit idle for awhile...

Have been scalping gold...
Perfect time for a vacation!!
  • #620
  • Dec 4, 2009 5:50am Dec 4, 2009 5:50am
Quoting The Fool

I have one dayjob project to finish and then I will be out of work in January/February.

It's been a long time since I had a regular job (15 years) but if things don't pick up, it might come to that.

We are in the same boat I see, I'll expect all my projects will be over mid Jan, Late Feb at the very latest, I'll have some money coming in for a bit from it to get me by while I get forex to a liveable status, shouldn't be hard really.

Nice coincidence there to, 15years of self employeed here, I really couldn't go back to the 9-5 grind where your life isn't really your life, without a job getting in the way you'll be able to make a living of trading easy I'd bet.
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
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