What is your weekly return?

Not sure what you mean by that, unless the image has been changed since you posted, it shows the price he went in at and the price it closed at and its the account history tab so those are closed trades.

@ Captain

ignorance is bliss

unless one has the patience to go through 2288 pages:

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=121761

any posts regarding challenging captain's claims are worthless ...

fellas, let's spend more time on reading & less on questioning other's belief.
let us be humble & not underestimate any other fellow.

as i am a fan of napoleon hill, i would just finish by saying,

you can achieve anything, if you believe you can !!!


Regards
.Hawk.

My mistake, I dont use MT4 for live trading so I am not used to the mt4 statement. My error, I do apologise. I have omitted it from my post

i think on a smaller scale 10% is easily achievable, if i had 1 dollar and gained another dollar the next day and told you i made 100% would you believe me lol.

Hi everyone..

my weekly return is about 5-7%

regards

I'm trying to have 5% per week!

This is kinda why i stopped in here.

I have been trading live for 1 month (6+ months demo) and am working really hard, finding good spots, staying sober, and currently im due to close out April at about %40.

I was beginning to think I was being too aggressive and risking too much because my returns are much higher than the (if you are making >%5/mo then you are using mad risk mgmt peple) are saying.

Im gonna start hanging out in those threads you posted.

Mike

Just remember, if you can make 40% per month you can lose 40% per month.

Remember: there are good months and there are bad months. However, 40% per month is a great result.

I wish you to have it every single month!

Mark

You can lose 100% in a month.

LOL, so true. People have lost fortunes in 1 day even.

Hi All,

very much an apprentice trader here with just over a year trading experience. Trading live small real money account the last 6 months and currently breaking even. I consider this to be a positive outcome in the early days of learning how to trade and how the markets work. I fully accept there are traders out there generating excellent returns and wish to thank them for sharing their strategies, as it is a great help to us newbie traders...

I just read the first page post and wanted to say!

IF YOU CAN'T DO IT THAT DOSE NOT MEAN OTHERS CAN'T!

I just don't get one thing.
I'm working whit demo micro account and a smart trader said to me that 10$ a day is very possible. So that would be 10% of my account in good day. I don't really see the problem of making good money here.
Ore maybe I'm just wrong.. beats me. I think it's not that hard of making more then 5-10% a month.

The whole % battle here and in similar threads all over is irrelevant without taking the trading frequency into account.. assuming 1% risk per trade a monthly goal of <=5% can be reasonable in position trading but is this absolute figure representative in daytrading or even scalping?

Let's assume we have an intraday method with working edge and trade 4 pairs. We cherry pick the entries and don't overtrade, so we get a setup only three times a week on every pair (on average). That makes about 50 trades monthly. For simplicity's sake, let's make the risk/reward ratio 1:1 only. Our stops/targets are in the 20-30 pip range which is well inside the ADR of any pair we trade. We are risking 1% per trade. With this rather conservative model, should I aim for 27 winners and 23 losers (a 54% win rate at 1:1R!) to be a "healthy" trader making realistic 4% monthly?

I think not; I even dare to say that a method giving such expectancy figure even over a relatively large sample of data is close to a coin toss enough not to bother with and subject to slide under 50% (thus turning unprofitable) more likely than a method giving some 65-70%WR@1:1R across the same sample.

Trading an expectancy of 70%WR@1:1R returns 20% monthly with above model frequency (35 wins/15 losses).

What did I want to say: if an intraday trader works with reasonable expectancy and the method (and the trader, of course)actually work, then aiming for 3% or 5% monthly gain is somehow weird; I think that's very unrealistic unless he doesn't risk some 0.x% per trade. With intraday trading, potential monthly gains AND losses will be much more about 10s of %, given a 1-2% risk per trade. The actual outcome will depend on the trader; if he is arbitrary and has no objective edge, he can gain 10s of % as well as lose them, he can even (very unlikely) make those "healthy" +5% five months in the row as a result of pure random. And there will be guys pulling that 10s of % out of the market consistently. As been said, it requires dedication and a hell load of effort, it eats time and nerves as well even if mastered.

And there are traders claiming to have better win rate alongside better risk/reward ratio taking more trades with more than 1% risk.

For sure - it's not impossible. There are other people swearing it is a joke, I don't want to argue with any party but it seems to me that those people are mostly higher timeframe, longer term, less frequent traders. From what I have read, I have a LOT of respect for most of them. Each way of trading has its pros & cons; a well-versed position trader will look upon a scalper judging him lunatic, and vice versa, stating (and honestly believing) their way of trading has more pros than cons in general. And for everyone of them, it exactly is the truth; the way they trade fits their personality and takes the time/energy resources they are willing to give it to see their goals as reasonable. Therefore, I feel the merit here is that long-term guys say intraday trading (in general) is a joke, everything under 4h is just noise, etc. I think such statements are shortcut, albeit they are making sense.

Conclusion: there's no point in arguing over weekly/monthly/yearly percentages without accounting for trading style/frequency. Both entities are tied to the time domain.

There's no point comparing the hypothetical performance of a retail trader (may the size of his/her account be $100 or $300K) to a hedge fund or George Soros; that's completely another world due to technical aspects at first. And there's no point in accounting psychology into that, too. If a trader does well with a tiny account and then does not so well with a larger one solely due to psychological issues ($-amount risk threshold included), then these psych limitations alone "only" make it harder, but not impossible in general.. the fact that many have them can't render that kind of return impossible for everybody.

So the real question should be: Is consistently profitable intraday trading possible at all?

Because if the answer is YES, then 10s of % monthly ROI are definitely possible. Those who say YES to short term trading but deny that kind of ROI might have following reasons:

 

1. Risking 1-2% equals overleveraging and it should be about 10 times less to remain realistic.
2. Intraday trading methods happen to have inadequately miserable expectancy / drawdown characteristics compared to longer term methods.

I don't think it's tenable. Just my 2¢ ;-)

You can earn 100% too, people have also made fortunes in a day.

With these pessimistic attitudes it's no wonder why you believe that lousy returns are acceptable, not only acceptable, but if you have anything better than a lousy return you're a liar.

How is earning 1% per week for long term? Yes I know it is very hard to do this as no big investors could not do it for the long run.
But may be for a small fund it is possible for some years.
I start trading to earn 40% up my account in six months. If my result is better than this I don't mind.
Regards.

Not pessimistic at all, it's just the knife cuts both ways. Also, I never said people making high returns are liars, I said it wasn't sustainable once the account size gets large enough.

Now you want to say that it's unsustainable, which I agree with. But is anyone really looking to take a $100 account and turn it into $100 billion? I don't think so. Here's what is sustainable:

I think most spot fx traders are simply looking to take that $100 account, and create a trading method that's profitable for them. Take that $100 account and turn it into $200 by trading or adding to it, eventually reaching an account size worth $20,000 to $50,000. Then trade that $20,000 or $50,000 account for income each month. A 20% return on $20,000 would be a nice $4,000 monthly withdrawal. I'm sure many here would love to pocket $4,000 a month pretty consistently! If one month you have a 50% return, withdraw the $10k, but only spend $4k if that's what you need to live on. Set aside the remaining $6k just in case you need it down the road or have a losing month. Rinse and repeat.

i don't care enough to look back and confirm... but i think you have mistaken lasvahgoose with custos. lvg said way back that it's not sustainable, and this is something no one has ever claimed to be wrong. custos, on the otherhand, says a lot of other stuff not worth repeating and more in tune with what you are trying to negate.

Nubcake and The Captain, thank you for your participation in arguing these points; that it is possible. You guys provide the fire for alot of people who believe it is possible. Exponential growth is possible. The only limit I can see is the leverage we use / broker when we get to a certain level which will then limit our persistent returns. I do not understand how people with 3 or even 10+ vouches become so pessimistic or try to kill others' dreams and ideas. I thought you get vouches here for helping others and foster education and dreams - naive of me I suppose. If people can dream it, it can happen. Do the pessimistic really think exponential growth is not possible? Do they really think noone in this world is doing it? Really? Is it because they have the vouches which makes them the authority on FF? If the non-believers disagree, then fine, but let those who believe find out for themselves of the limit because there are others (naive) may actually believe you. But for others like Nubcake, The Captain, and optimistic others, the dream is there and it is happening contrary to pessimistic beliefs.

Throughout history, there have been believers and non-believers of ideas and progress. Only the strong and believers get ahead at the end.