I have recently taken it upon myself to undergo an experiment of sorts. I started a couple weeks back with an insignificant amount I don't mind losing ($200) and have been scalping with an ultra-high risk/ultra-high leverage approach. I am trading with 500:1 leverage - any less and this won't be possible - where each 1 pip move represents 2% of my account balance. I have been targeting between 2-3 pips, which after commissions (I trade on ECN) nets about 3.5% per trade. Somewhere between 18-20 trades doubles your account. One losing trade of 40-50 pips (depending on margin requirements) will wipe out the account.
I will state the obvious now... Trading this approach indefinitely WILL at some point result in a loss of the entire balance (hence the thread title).
I know this is nothing new, and I'm sure traders have done this here with varying degrees of success. I started this thread because I am at the first milestone of 20 winning trades, and having doubled the account I am somewhat at odds of how to proceed. Here are the 3 options:
1) Withdraw my initial starting amount of $200. The positive here is the peace of mind that you are henceforth trading with "house money", as you will break even at the very worst. The negative is that you will be starting the cycle completely over.
2) Withdraw a fixed percentage, somewhere in the range of 20-50%, and then go for another cycle. Example: $200 -> $400 then withdraw $80, $320 -> $640 then withdraw $128, $512 -> $1,024 then withdraw $205, $819 -> $1,638 then withdraw $328, $1,311 -> $2,621 then withdraw $524 (at this point that would be 100 trades in a row which is extremely unlikely)
3) Keep going as I have and try for another cycle ($400 -> $800)
My trade explorer below has been filtered to show how the experiment has gone thus far. I have included a poll in this thread... how would you proceed?
I will state the obvious now... Trading this approach indefinitely WILL at some point result in a loss of the entire balance (hence the thread title).
I know this is nothing new, and I'm sure traders have done this here with varying degrees of success. I started this thread because I am at the first milestone of 20 winning trades, and having doubled the account I am somewhat at odds of how to proceed. Here are the 3 options:
1) Withdraw my initial starting amount of $200. The positive here is the peace of mind that you are henceforth trading with "house money", as you will break even at the very worst. The negative is that you will be starting the cycle completely over.
2) Withdraw a fixed percentage, somewhere in the range of 20-50%, and then go for another cycle. Example: $200 -> $400 then withdraw $80, $320 -> $640 then withdraw $128, $512 -> $1,024 then withdraw $205, $819 -> $1,638 then withdraw $328, $1,311 -> $2,621 then withdraw $524 (at this point that would be 100 trades in a row which is extremely unlikely)
3) Keep going as I have and try for another cycle ($400 -> $800)
My trade explorer below has been filtered to show how the experiment has gone thus far. I have included a poll in this thread... how would you proceed?