Depositing each on each positive month? If so how much? 20% more? How big of an account size say your monthly income is 5000? Or if you are a student? Etc etc
I would recommend to start with the position as small as possible , as small that the average trade will barely cover expenses. If your deposit will grow then in a quarter increase the size of the position... And that is how you will progress, if you will progress. If you will not progress then u will stop and switch back on paper without major damage to your pocket. The one with 911 in the nick should forget about monthly income ( especially 5k per month) at least until the time will come that he does not need to call for help.
Backtesting can provide an answer. Wether or not it is optimal for the future is unknown, but may be helpful to discover how your trading systems performed previously. Agree about starting with smallest account sizes, and only use regular account size when you're getting "comfortable" and proven the system to some rational degree.
I think it depends too much on people's personal circumstances and aspirations to be able to answer it with numbers, to be honest. I managed to start off my first funded account with a deposit of $3,000, after a very long time on demo, and at the time I didn't need to withdraw anything from it each month toward my living expenses (which was just as well, because what you can safely make in a month off a $3,000 account isn't worth talking about anyway!). I think it's important to have realistic expectations, and to understand that "making monthly income" shouldn't be the primary goal of trading a small funded account - the three goals should be getting used to trading real money, avoiding drawdowns, and collating the outcomes of a large series of consecutive trades without making a net loss. I think most beginning traders hugely "overstake", i.e. their position-sizing is much too high. What's sensible varies according to win-rate and R:R (both of which should be reliably tested and proven and known before starting) but I find it pretty hard to believe that any aspiring trader should be risking more than 1% of their account funds on any individual trade. Just my perspective ...
If you learn one thing about trading, it should be risk management. Risk no more than 2% of your total trading capital. Say you have $2,000 to invest or trade. Each trade should risk no more than 2% of $2,000 or $40.00. Does not mean you will only use $40.00 per trade. When you have an entry say of $45.00 and your stop loss is at $42.00, the risk on that trade is 3.00. Divide $40.00/3= number of shares to buy for this trade. You can only buy 13 shares @45.00 for this trade. That trade will cost you $585.00 dollars of your $2,000.00 account. The reason you do this is so that, you do not blow your account up and lose that $2,000.00. You need to last, because it would take time to figure everything out! Losses are part of the game. You have to keep the losses small and your gains much, much larger! If you can do that, you will grow your account.
This. Exactly this. Without first mastering not just the theory but the practicalities and realities of this, one has nothing.
A few thoughts: 1. Always try to save as much as possible. 2. Pay off all high interest debt before beginning investing. 3. Start small. As others have said, your first goal should be not losing money. Only scale up when you have demonstrated months of consistent profitability. You're not missing out on much by starting small. If you have a small account, then even if you are able to generate a large return, it probably won't be that much money compared to working. So focus on increasing income in other areas while you trade. Be patient. But keep at it with small positions. 4. If you trade options, it's easier to make money selling vs. buying. Check out tastytrade.com for some ideas.
I’d put as little as possible( without bleeding yourself to death with commissions). Ideally you’ll allow yourself a year or more of just doing the grind. Paper trading can be useful but putting small amounts of real cash on the line helps learn the emotions you’ll experience. This should also be money that your willing to lose. No reason to start big, and if you put the pressure on yourself to make a living off trading when first starting off, your pretty much going to end up in the failure boat.
Generally speaking, The more you can fund with and the less percentage of it you can risk even at the expense of a lower yield is better. You will need to make enough yield to pay your labor plus costs. If you can garner a few percent above that consistently for 20 years you would be miles ahead of most. ES
The good technic also to impose a number of stop losses in one day - once you hit this number, stop to trade for this day or week. For example - you will have three winning trades, then two stop losses, and my risk managemnt would tell me to stop for this day. The same apporach is for week/month. This helped at the beginning to not get overexited afer the wins and so to blew away the profits with next erronious or just not going trades.