How did you grow your account into a big one?

Quote from gmst:

Thanks garachen and ofthomas.

I believe every word of what you say. Your success is truly astounding. I am not sure if other accomplished successful traders also achieve this kind of success. Maybe they do, I don't know.
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lol... I hope you were being sarcastic...

I dont call myself an accomplished successful trader, far from it.. I am just risk adverse after having lost a lot and found what "works" for me... which is basically diversifying and spreading my risk around...

I mean, if I was allowed to trade equities full blown (not just ETF's) I would be trading full time with WTS/Bright/Echo/Chimera/etc... so that I could take my $$$ and leverage it conservatitely (6-10x NLV) and that would basically be a portfolio of pairs and scalps consisting of at least 100 instruments... yes, pretty much fully automated and netting $20-$50 per trade, but what I care about is the possitive P&L in the end (or a small loss as long as I am up for the month)...

I am by no means a successful trader (at least not to my own personal standards and considering I am still down in the long term over the past decade), but I do plan to change that and focus more on being able to try harder (given apparently I haven't been doing so, but I had already started to this month anyhow)
 
Quote from CoolTraderDude:


Looking over the trades this person traded gold exclusively. You quickly notice the massive increase in size from 15 lots to 60 lots in XAU/USD... And then a decrease in size to just 1 lot with further trades despite the fact that he/she wasn't losing.

So to answer the question... You grow your account by betting big on sure things and then just churning along for everything else.

If anyone ever read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Jesse Livermore he pretty much says the same thing. He used to go really big when he was sure of something.

Obviously, if you get it wrong you're going to lose a huge portion of your account but this is really the only way to go about it if you want to make huge gains.

You can also grow your account steadily with the same size and gradually increasing your size as you win steadily. However, this implies a very high amount of consistency which is next to impossible to achieve in trading.
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you bring up a good point, and this is what I struggle with personally... when I know I have a good chance at being right, because things line up and as such the probabilities are higher, I freeze and still trade the same size and see what I felt materialize... not sure why yet, for some whatever reason I cant say yet "all things line up, lets just increase to 5x normal... single trade for the day if I lose"... so putting the foot on the gas pedal when things are lined up with higher probability is certainly a way to grow your account as well...
 
Grinding it out and getting consistent. Once you are truly consistent, you can increase your sizing very slowly and gradually.

I've seen traders go from one-lot futures traders to hundred lot futures traders in 18 months. And their risk-to-capitalization ratios remained relatively constant. In fact, the biggest bump is going from one lots to two lots in the futures at least.

If you are truly consistent, then you can increase your sizing by the smallest increment after, let's say, three positive days in a row and go from a one lot trader to a fifty lot trader in a year in the futures - all with one-lot bumps in sizing.
 
I really don't want to pollute this guy's thread. But I think I should shed a bit of light on what my friend meant about "not trying hard enough".

It boils down to this. Most people make trade offs to achieve a balanced life. Family, friends, church, security, etc. His point was, that if your singular goal was to make money and you lived consistent with that goal than it was very achievable. Of course this is not a healthy way to live but I do believe just thinking about what you could accomplish if you were 100% dedicated to that purpose is helpful. It just opens your eyes to new things.

I sometimes tease my employees who are unmarried when they complain about their lack of dating/marriage. I tell them that they are just not trying hard enough and if they dedicated themselves even just 2 hours a day to the singular purpose of getting married then they could do it. Of course for some there might be extenuating circumstances but I view it as just a numbers game. If you talk to 5 new people every day, which isn't objectively difficult, your chances of meeting someone is pretty high.

So, same thing for trading or making money. You'd be surprised to see how many people claim that as a goal but don't spend at least 2+ hours a day making concrete steps to further that goal. People are creatures of habit and getting caught up in the grind going to work everyday but even there not REALLY focusing on improving their situation is just too easy.

Even for people who have a job. How much time can we honestly say we focus on 'how to I double my pay' and 'what can I do for the next 2 hours to 100% devote myself to that plan'. After spending some time thinking about this and considering lots of possible actions it becomes apparent that making more money and working harder at the tasks assigned are very rarely coupled.

So, as I said, I listened to this friend of mine every day for about 2 months before I got the courage to act on it. He was really very motivating. I fear I do not express his points nearly as eloquently as he did but I hope you can overlook that.
 
I dont think you would be polluting the thread given it is also related to the goal of the OP IMO... and it makes perfect total sense, I can see how I can apply it to my own personal goals to achieve more... so thank you for sharing that tidbit of knowledge and point of view... really, thank you... greatly appreciated... :)

Quote from garachen:

I really don't want to pollute this guy's thread. But I think I should shed a bit of light on what my friend meant about "not trying hard enough".

It boils down to this. Most people make trade offs to achieve a balanced life. Family, friends, church, security, etc. His point was, that if your singular goal was to make money and you lived consistent with that goal than it was very achievable. Of course this is not a healthy way to live but I do believe just thinking about what you could accomplish if you were 100% dedicated to that purpose is helpful. It just opens your eyes to new things.

I sometimes tease my employees who are unmarried when they complain about their lack of dating/marriage. I tell them that they are just not trying hard enough and if they dedicated themselves even just 2 hours a day to the singular purpose of getting married then they could do it. Of course for some there might be extenuating circumstances but I view it as just a numbers game. If you talk to 5 new people every day, which isn't objectively difficult, your chances of meeting someone is pretty high.

So, same thing for trading or making money. You'd be surprised to see how many people claim that as a goal but don't spend at least 2+ hours a day making concrete steps to further that goal. People are creatures of habit and getting caught up in the grind going to work everyday but even there not REALLY focusing on improving their situation is just too easy.

Even for people who have a job. How much time can we honestly say we focus on 'how to I double my pay' and 'what can I do for the next 2 hours to 100% devote myself to that plan'. After spending some time thinking about this and considering lots of possible actions it becomes apparent that making more money and working harder at the tasks assigned are very rarely coupled.

So, as I said, I listened to this friend of mine every day for about 2 months before I got the courage to act on it. He was really very motivating. I fear I do not express his points nearly as eloquently as he did but I hope you can overlook that.
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Quote from garachen:

I really don't want to pollute this guy's thread. But I think I should shed a bit of light on what my friend meant about "not trying hard enough".

It boils down to this. Most people make trade offs to achieve a balanced life. Family, friends, church, security, etc. His point was, that if your singular goal was to make money and you lived consistent with that goal than it was very achievable. Of course this is not a healthy way to live but I do believe just thinking about what you could accomplish if you were 100% dedicated to that purpose is helpful. It just opens your eyes to new things.

I sometimes tease my employees who are unmarried when they complain about their lack of dating/marriage. I tell them that they are just not trying hard enough and if they dedicated themselves even just 2 hours a day to the singular purpose of getting married then they could do it. Of course for some there might be extenuating circumstances but I view it as just a numbers game. If you talk to 5 new people every day, which isn't objectively difficult, your chances of meeting someone is pretty high.

So, same thing for trading or making money. You'd be surprised to see how many people claim that as a goal but don't spend at least 2+ hours a day making concrete steps to further that goal. People are creatures of habit and getting caught up in the grind going to work everyday but even there not REALLY focusing on improving their situation is just too easy.

Even for people who have a job. How much time can we honestly say we focus on 'how to I double my pay' and 'what can I do for the next 2 hours to 100% devote myself to that plan'. After spending some time thinking about this and considering lots of possible actions it becomes apparent that making more money and working harder at the tasks assigned are very rarely coupled.

So, as I said, I listened to this friend of mine every day for about 2 months before I got the courage to act on it. He was really very motivating. I fear I do not express his points nearly as eloquently as he did but I hope you can overlook that.
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The point you made reminded me of an Economist blog piece I bookmarked, and the links I followed and bookmarked too.

The New Yorker article about the 4 burners is particularly relevant.

Forget the physics and appropriateness of the metaphors that some appear to get stuck on, just take the idea and run with it.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babb...r-programmers?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/wiredforspeed

http://www.tempobook.com/2011/10/25/thrust-drag-and-the-10x-effect/

http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/24/090824fa_fact_sedaris
 
lol. so if I tried very hard to dunk a basketball for 2 hours a day, could I do it? are you saying the 90% of failed traders simply don't think hard enough, or long enough? of the ones that spend 10 hours a day staring at MACD....is that bad? should they stare at RSI?

so, yes....work smarter, harder!!!! haha. these treads are comical, since zero practical information.

now I tell my minions who only make 10k a day....listen, if you focus more, eat better, exercise more, you will make 100k a day!!!!

let's all cheer at once!!!!

I know one guy who wants to be a gold medalist at running. I say, run 1 mile today, 2 tomorrow...soon you will be the best!!!!

more cheering!!!!
 
A very nice and informative thread, good to read different traders experience. Well for scalping up our account to a bigger one i feel that we should have two different accounts. One in which we take the returns on consistent basis and then the other one in which we keep compounding the profits until we reach our desired account portfolio.
 
I'll give you some advice that's a bit unconventional. It's based on the premise that you are actually looking to grow your capital substantially or acquire wealth and not just supplement your income.

20-30% is way too low for the task. You are going to need leverage, ALOT of it but assuming your drawdowns are low there is no reason why you shouldn't even dare i say over-leverage yourself. In my opinion slow and steady is overrated. Your edge will get flattened way before you make any serious money so you need to press it and press hard. You can refocus on tighter risk controls and keeping what you have once you get there. Now all of this assumes your edge is real and quantifiable and you are not just fooled by randomness.
 
Quote from rallymode:

I'll give you some advice that's a bit unconventional. It's based on the premise that you are actually looking to grow your capital substantially or acquire wealth and not just supplement your income.

20-30% is way too low for the task. You are going to need leverage, ALOT of it but assuming your drawdowns are low there is no reason why you shouldn't even dare i say over-leverage yourself. In my opinion slow and steady is overrated. Your edge will get flattened way before you make any serious money so you need to press it and press hard. You can refocus on tighter risk controls and keeping what you have once you get there. Now all of this assumes your edge is real and quantifiable and you are not just fooled by randomness.
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so have an edge and low drawdowns!!! of course, why can't other traders think like this. haha.

I will add: bet big, super tight stop, double down when up 300%, and go all-in when up 1,000%. then cash out, repeat.
 
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