From my personal experience and from my experience with other traders, I have found that small accounts don't work. The majority of people don't have the discipline and self control to manage a small account. Of course, small is relative to the person, but all that matters is that the person's who's account it is believes his account is small. If you think your account is small you'll be: 1.Wanting to increase the size of it faster than is safe. 2.Over-leverage to make more money per trade; therefore becoming over exposed. It's only natural that you want to have a high return on your efforts, but the only way you can do this safely is to have a large account.
While I agree on the large account size (at least, if you're trying to make a living from it,) I do believe in the following as well: If you don't have the discipline to trade a small account as if it was large (ie, not over-trading, not over-leveraging, not putting on dumb trades just because it isn't a lot of money..etc..) then you don't have the discipline to manage a larger amount of capital anyway. You can always scale size.. the craft is what's important.
you need to be realistic. IF your only job is trading, then figure your expenses. Rent maybe 1,000 food maybe 400 misc. 200-300 other bills 150 let's just say 1800 as a real basic number. IF you start with a 10k account.......trust me, the odds are soo far stacked against you. IF you start with 25k and breakeven for a year, the account goes to about ZERO after you pay a year's expenses. with a 100k account you need 2% a month just to pay bills. my advice. MINIMUM funding 25k futures and only if you have another 25k in the bank account to pay bills. can you imagine if the Gurus told their customers such basic, simple stuff? no clients. lol
Study this chart and click this thread http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=236628 Higher Education is the key to become a successful trader Higher Education!
Account size is important, but with forex and other instruments, you can still keep your risk small with a small account. It`s all relative to the size of the account. But yes, trying to make a living with a small account and pressing for unrealistic returns using high leverage is a sure way to blow up. A fellow Norwegian lost his whole net worth of one billion NOK and even got in debt, after trying to be a big player in the stock markets. Sadly, his prior success (luck?) from business, did not transfer to trading. So, having a large account is not the answer either. Education is the answer, although one does not have to take the path that emg recommends. It is however probably the easiest one.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/03/business/la-fi-amateur-currency-trading-20110403 It's not the question of emotion and leverage, but how the fx system is setup. If u want to become a successful trader, join the house after achieving HIGHER EDUCATION degrees. Higher Education!!! More than 90% of small traders lose. They just lose!
It is the system that makes u (small trader) believe that u are losing because of emotion and over trading, while the fact is, they system is built for only big traders and institution. Now burn your accounts small traders BURN
Damn it emg...you go around here plastering your screenshots of your arrogant Higher Education crap... but... You are right on with this post below (except I do not wish any small traders to lose their money). ElectricIsAFailedTraderSavingFaceand BlamingSavant