you can also do a end of month arb, where you go long underperforming sector stocks long at eom for a short scalp

other option is to time with equity MOM factor and scalp around long reversals

I have a job. I'm a budget analyst for a defense contractor. I make $60K/yr.

Yes, I could've worked 5-10 hours at a menial job, but believe it or not... I find this enjoyable. Strange, I know.

With today's windfall, I am +62% currently. 26 trades -- Avg win $14.09, Avg Loss ($9.26).... LOL @ sample size, but it's a start.

You make $60K/year, have a good head for numbers, and you're dicking around with $100 on forex? From this I assumed you didn't have much money:
And perhaps you don't, but you have more than enough to start an options account with an actual lucky shot at making non-trivial/life changing money. And more importantly (if you want to keep it small) an actual at shot at learning how to make money. You can trade $50 amounts easily, all you really need to do is have cash for the initial deposits.

Good luck man - this thread is too weird for even me.

You nailed it. I really don't have **** to put towards trading. I have a mortgage, my girl doesn't work, and I have a daughter. I think my plan should be to learn stocks or derivatives, and then maybe come tax season next year I will have acquired some additional knowledge/tax return income that can go towards it... My brother trades options, but honestly it confuses the hell out of me. Part of this whole thing, admittedly, is about being in a familiar bubble. It's not that I don't want to branch out but the idea of starting over with something completely new is a little daunting.

I have a bit of a different take. I respect what you are doing and think your first month was impressive. Will you lose your $100 bucks eventually? Yes. But will you gain knowledge while watching charts and doing research while playing around with your $100? Absolutely.

A poster stated that your time would have been better spent working or developing a useful trade, instead of d*&king around with $100 for pocket change in profits. However, a practice account (while useful) does not duplicate the actual feeling and flow of making a real money trade. There is no substitute for actual live, real money trading (regardless of the amount you are using). .05/.10 NL is different than a play money NL account.

My first year of swing trading (2012), I probably spent about 1000 hours studying charts, books, blogs, and back testing like crazy (on the weekends, during slow times at work and in the evenings). I then lost 20% for the year (-$2,000). So I spent 1000 hours on a task that cost me $2,000. But I learned a ton. I also developed a trade journal of what I bought and why, for every single trade I made (and continue to do so through this day) which is priceless to me now.

My second year swing trading, I made 25% (so after 2 full years of studying, back testing, analyzing, trading, etc., I was up about $500). My third year, I made 75%. The fourth year, I started day trading securities and doubled (100%) my $25k day trading buyin. The fifth year I moved to options and quadrupled the money I deposited (granted I also lost a ton from my high point, but my year end still resulted in a "quadruple up"). I'm now in my sixth year.

I look at my first year of trading much like a year of law school. I spent a ton of time studying, but received no actual tangible value for the $20k I spent in tuition. There was also no guarantee that if I quit after one year of law school that I would ever gain any tangible income from that time (and in fact it's actually more difficult to find a job when you only have a year or two of law school, but don't finish). But I gained knowledge. I gained the ability to sit and intensely focus on a single difficult and stressful task for long periods of time.

Trading in the markets is similar. If your $100 bucks is the reason you are now watching charts, analyzing the market, doing research and actually entering buy and sell orders in real time, then it is $100 well spent. The time you spend (may) pay huge dividends in a few years when you have more capital to work with--and of course the time you spend may also result in you losing your shirt (to and including every penny you ever put in the market). But you do gain knowledge along the way that can be useful in other endeavors for nothing other than the fact that you now have a basic understanding of how the markets function.

Nearly everybody who tries trading fails. If you understand that fact, but actually spend the time, study, analyze, back test, develop a journal and taper your expectations, you could have a shot. But even if you fail (and are only using money you can afford to lose), it's not as though the knowledge you gained and the time you spent was completely worthless.

So I say nice month. Keep studying and hopefully your run good continues.

Yeah, the two threads are exactly the same thing. Same situation, same application to the market, and in fact, they will eventually have the exact same result (pissing away money). Just two random dudes with little idea of what they are doing trading micro-stakes hoping they don't go broke.

Threads should totally merge.

So how much actual money have you made from six years of effort? How much capital was put at risk to make this money, and at what risk of ruin (given 90+% of traders go broke)?

Even your story proves my point that trading is the worst possible way to make money relative to time and energy invested.
Threads are the same, only the amounts are different. I do enjoy them though. I just wish OP would choose something he has a shot at. Forex is pure wasted time. You fill your head up with noise, since there's no signal. There's a reason none of the guys in the forum who are making 6 and 7 figures a year trading are trading forex. Even though forex is the most liquid and scalable instrument.

We will likely not see "eye to eye" on this particular idea, because I believe we're looking at it from two different perspectives. I could have easily billed more hours as an attorney on the weekends and during the evenings over the last six years and I would have made more money than I did in the stock market. But I have genuinely enjoyed learning about the markets and I also genuinely enjoy the time I spend trading. If a person has that mindset, then the hardline "time v. energy v. profit" analysis isn't quite the same.

For example, I have a buddy who loves building cars (I absolutely hate working on cars). He spends all of his free time on the weekends and the evenings building exotic cars from scratch and researching them on the internet. He invests like $30k in parts and then over 6 months builds a car that he takes to auction. He may sell the car for $35k. So he risked $30k in capital and spent all of his free time over six months to build a car for which he only profits $5k. On some cars, he barely breaks even versus the amount he spends on parts.

But he loves building cars.

So if OP is enjoying his time and enjoying studying about the market, then the analysis may be a bit different.

Absolutely right imo. This is the main reason I wanted to do this.

Thanks. The run good did continue today. Got in short again on EUR/USD right around 14:00 GMT and rode it out to a +17% day. Currently at +90% YTD

"The secret of life is enjoying the passing of time" - James Taylor

There is a lot of random advice on the internet that is positive that they know how better to live your life than you do. They don't You have to follow your own personal passion and do what you love and enjoy that passage of time to the fullest. For some it is trading, for some it is building cars, and for some it is passing judgement on others as an internet know-it-all.

Yes mrbaseball, you might want to work on that last.

If OP is enjoying himself, wonderful. Let's move this to the blog forum, then.

I thought he was here for money. Throughout this thread, OP frequently talks about his frustration and unhappiness he was almost at the point of throwing in the towel until a lucky coin toss upped his monthly return from extremely lucky to ridiculously lucky. Thus it appears that trading is taking quite a negative emotional toll on him.
His emotional rollercoaster proves he is here for money and the prospect of money and not the process; I am merely informing that the absolute nut low of money and the prospect of money (and hence happiness) is to be found in trading forex.

All gamblers enjoy themselves when they're on hot streaks; OP is no different. The most miserable, -EV gambler in the world is happy on an ultra-lucky +90% month. Your advice and insight, as usual, is horrible.

Example of someone who is enjoying himself trading: Sportfaxx1.

What on Earth are you talking about? At what point did I talk about throwing in the towel or indicate being unhappy or frustrated?

Sounds like you're having a blast. And this is on an ultra-lucky up month (at the point above you'd returned 11% - no one returns that long term which means you're running hot), before you went on your +90% and the skies all brightened for you.

Anyway, gl. Not much more to be said.

That was more coming to the realization that I should be trading the approach that works for me, despite being told not to. It wasn't out of any kind of frustration.

Well, the bright skies have darkened up a bit. I got whipsawed to hell and back this morning. It was bound to happen soon. -23% day... +45% YTD

So, I rarely ever hold trades over the weekend, but thinking of doing so at the moment. Despite switching to 5 minute charts, I felt there was a good opportunity last night on the longer time frame for the Euro to break out of it's recent shell a little bit. I woke up to find it had done just that. At the moment, manually trailing my stop and debating whether to scale out of this a little or let it ride through the weekend. I suppose I'll see what happens within the next few hours... Currently +58% for the day.

Given that I started this on 5/19, my 2nd month is in the books. I just wanted to give a quick update for anyone that may have followed this.

I'm henceforth referring to this as "God Month" as I was able to return 276%... A couple things are fairly obvious 1) This is absurdly above expectation 2) I have benefited greatly from the steady decline of the USD.

The timing of this was just really good as it has been fairly simple to spot the upward retraces, enter short, and trail stops (chart below is EUR/USD, so obv this would be reversed). It's always nice when a pair behaves in the manner you expect it to. I'm sure the party will stop at some point, but for now I will consider myself fortunate.

Stats
129 trades - 70 wins, 59 losses (54% win-rate)
Avg win - $18.14
Avg loss - ($16.12)
Balance - $418.89

after being so not thrilled, I'm kinda routing for you....

what is your exposure per trade (account % wise)

My exposure is pretty horrendous to be honest. Somewhere around 10% (which as bad as that is it was actually worse in the beginning). My risk per trade is probably my biggest leak right now, but being a micro account I really don't care. I certainly wouldn't start with 10K risking a grand per trade.

kelly criterion imo

I know a little bit about it, but not much experience using that kind of approach to be honest. Don't you need exact probabilities of win/loss to calculte optimal sizing? I think in my case that would be pretty difficult to quantify given the small sample. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something.

100+ trades seems like plenty of sample. I'm getting .13 for your numbers. Kind of a ridiculous trade size but you are almost there at 10% anyway.

Interesting that kelly calculates such giant sizes whilst being "optimal". It seems lots of traders actually risk somewhere in the neighborhood of kelly/10 per trade.

Wow. That seems insane to me. I guess I've heard the tired mantra "never risk more than 1% per trade" so many times that it feels like what I'm doing here is a bit reckless.

saying 1% absolute max per trade is just stupid, but 10% is yolo for sure

Actually (somewhere on my comp but I'm to lazy), long term PnL results with Kelly are highly influenced by rng() of a first few bets. If you get unlucky with those bet sizes you are highly handicapping yourself.

Given 1/2 Kelly equals 1/2 variance and 2/3 Profit, it is better not to go full Kelly but to go 1/x Kelly and scale appropriately.

Of-course if you have a tiny account...stabbing with full Kelly is the way to go.

http://www.wisdomtrading.com/risk-dr...in-calculator/